


Across These Galaxies, We Will Make Our Home

by abyss1826



Series: Despite The Space Between Us, The Universe Can't Tear Us apart [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ADHD, Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Langst, M/M, Multi, Near Death Experiences, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sentient Voltron Lions, Team Bonding, The Dark History Of The Paladins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-11-13 23:35:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11195805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abyss1826/pseuds/abyss1826
Summary: Now that everyone has been reunited after the wormhole incident it is time to continue the war against Zarkon. But it isn't just the Paladins of Voltron fighting. With new allies on the ship, and old allies to be found, secrets both ancient and recent threaten to tip the unsteady balance of our unwitting soldiers.





	1. They Built That Foundation, You Watched Them Tear It Down, Now We’re All At War And There’s No Solid Ground

Allura, Coran, and Thace stood on the bridge, looking up at the hologram of stars above them.

“So this is where your ship is hidden?” Allura asked, looking at the sun between the two black holes located in a part of the universe yet to be explored by Zarkon’s forces, hundreds of light years beyond Earth.

“Yes. Phirra’s base of command.”

“So she’s Empress now?” Coran asked.

“Yes.”

“And how much did she tell you about the war, exactly?” Thace sighed deeply, knowing where this was going.

“Everything she knew.” He paused. “And everything Sahlrin knew, also.”

“Yet you came to us as a friend?” Allura asked, knowing only half of it.

“As long as we have an enemy in Zarkon and his empire, you two will find allies in us,” Thace answered slowly.

“And when we defeat Zarkon? When his empire is destroyed?” she asked.

“Then you will leave. My family will stay, and the humans will return to their planet; assuming it has not then been destroyed.”

“And what of Voltron?”

“That future is uncertain. You four can decide that at a later date.”

“Four?” Coran asked.

“The two of you, Sahlrin, and Phirra.”

“Does your father not rule beside her?”

“My father was killed in battle when I was very young.”

“I’m sorry,” Allura said, a sad look on her face. “Was he anyone we would have known? From when Phirra was a child?”

“Kiritzan, his father was a Lord in Sahlrin’s court.”

“They liked to play together in the gardens,” Allura recollected. “You must take after him more.” Thace looked at her curiously.

“What makes you say that?”

“You don't seem to have any of the Altean traits Phirra had from Kaana.” Thace frowned at her, before beginning to laugh.

“I apologise, I had forgotten that I never changed back.” He closed his eyes, looking focused, and Allura and Coran shot each other questioning looks before they realized he was shapeshifting. Dark turquoise markings appeared on his cheekbones, wide crescents that opened down. His ears moved down slightly, became more narrow and elongated in structure but still retained their Galran fur and appearance. His fur became speckled with more small patches of white, like freckles, and when he opened his eyes they were still yellow, but the sclera were paler, his irises taking on the bright hue instead. In the light, his pupils reflected pink, just like Allura’s. “There we go,” he said with a grin, teeth still sharp and gleaming.

“Now you look like part of the family,” Allura chuckled. 

“I suppose I do now, don’t I?”


	2. We’re Lost Here Together, But Is That Better Or Worse?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Backstory and bonding and langst OH SHIt  
> im vry tired

Shiro wasn’t sure what to think about Hunter. Or, rather, Athridir as Matt called him when Shiro overheard them talking. He was large and fierce, always nearby when Matt was in the room if not directly next to him. Shiro wanted to know what happened to Matt at the camp, but aside from a bare bones explanation of organizing the rebellion, he got nothing. He had asked what had happened to him in the gladiator rings. Matt told him that it was the same as what happened to him. He didn’t remember what happened to him, he said. 

_ “Then it’d be best to keep it that way,” _ Matt had replied. Anxiety dropped into his chest like ice into an open wound. He didn’t want Matt to have to hide things from him the way he hid things from the team. 

Matt wasn’t a part of the team. He wasn’t a teenager that needed guidance and support. The other Paladins needed him to be a strong leader, and Shiro couldn’t afford to be anything but that for any of them, even Keith.

But Matt was different. He didn’t need to hide things from Matt, and he didn’t want Matt to have to hide things from him either.

But Matt was a leader too, Shiro saw. He couldn’t imagine having to organize the aliens who were on the ship with Sam. Several of them didn’t quite get along, but Matt clearly got everyone to cooperate, and from what Sam had told him there had been about three times the amount of them at the beginning. 

_ “He’s always had a way of bringing people together,” _ Sam had chuckled.

Matt was a leader too, and in that way, he and Shiro were just too similar.

 

“What are you two up to?” Shiro asked. The Paladins had just finished training for the day, and he walked into the lounge room to find Matt and Athridir already there. Athridir was sitting on the sunken couch, hunkered over something Shiro couldn't see. Matt however, was on the floor in the center of the sunken couch, looking like he had just dissected about half the technology in the ship and scattered the bits and pieces around him, lower back against a section of the couch. Pidge’s laptop was next to him, and he was wearing her headphones, bouncing along to whatever it was he was listening to while he worked. Shiro couldn’t help but smile. Seeing him like that was so familiar they could have been on Earth, still roommates at the Garrison. 

“I am working on claws for Matthew,” Athridir stated.

“Claws?”

“your species lacks them and I believe they would be beneficial to him when fighting.”

“...Alright.” He looked back at Matt, who didn’t seem to hear that anyone had spoken. Shiro noticed that he had braided his hair back again to keep it out of his eyes as he slid down into a seated position on the couch next to him. “And what are  _ you _ up to?” Matt still showed no signs of hearing him. Shiro however, could faintly hear what it was he  _ was _ hearing. “You’re gonna go deaf before you hit thirty at this rate Mattie,” he muttered, “Earth to, no, Castle To Matthew I Wish To Socialize With You,” he said, at regular volume, with his hands cupped around his mouth and leaned over so that Matt would see him in his peripheral vision. Matt looked up, to the side, and nearly jumped out of his skin. Shiro heard a cracking noise, and Matt rolled to the side, arms raised in a position to block. 

“Takashi fuck what,” Matt squeaked. All Shiro processed was that Matt was upset and had elbowed him in the jaw. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” There was another crunching, popping noise. Shiro saw Athridir closing his mouth when he looked up, a flash of bone white and glowing blue disappearing in the blink of an eye.

“I tried not to, sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Matt grunted dismissively, rolling back up from where he had landed on his side to his previous sitting position. Luckily, nothing had been crushed or terribly jostled during his sudden movements. He leaned over to his sister’s computer and paused his music. “What’s up dude?” he asked, like nothing at all had happened. 

“That’s what I was trying to ask  _ you _ ,” Shiro chuckled.

“Oh.” There was a pause of silence. “What was the question?”

“I was just wondering what you were doing.”

“Oh! I’m trying to make a computer out of this stuff Coran gave me to build with so I can transfer my hard drive to it and don’t have to keep bothering Katie to let me use her computer.”

“Why is your hard drive on her computer?”

“April Fools Day.”

“What did you do April Fools Day?”

“Well, she has like, three internal drives on this thing it’s huge, so I put my computer on one of them-”

“Oh right, and then you encrypted hers and switched which one the computer read from or something.”

“Yeah.” Matt giggled. “She was so fucking pissed before she realized her stuff was still there I almost got grounded for supposedly breaking the ‘elaborate but harmless’ rule.”

“Matt!”

“What?! It was our last April Fools before the mission I knew I had to go out hard before the two-year hiatus!”

“You’re wild,” Shiro laughed, and Matt laughed with him, angling his shoulders between Shiro's knees and leaning his head back to look up at him.

“Like you’d have me any other way,” the younger man teased. Shiro blushed as Matt grinned up at him before his eye was caught by something.

“You’ve got something on your neck,” Shiro said, at first thinking what he saw was lint or something, but he quickly realized that wasn't the case. Matt tried to slouch down so the collar line of the shirt would ride up, cover more than it really did, but it accomplished the opposite. “Are those… Matt are those bite marks?!” he asked, somewhere between bewildered and horrified as Matt’s shifting only revealed darker crescent shaped scars he could distinctly see couldn't have been made by anything other than very pointed teeth. Matt sat up quickly, effectively distancing himself so Shiro couldn't see anything else.

“No, it's nothing,” he said too sharply. 

“That was anything but 'nothing’, Matt.”

“It's none of your concern Shirogane.”

“Yeah well I care about you and this is making me concerned!”

“Too bad!”

“What happened?!”

“Doesn't matter it's over and they're fucking dead and it's not going to happen again!”

“'They’?!”

“It. Doesn't. Matter,” Matthew growled in frustration, getting up and beginning to walk away.

“I just want you to be able to talk to me!”

“I Don't Need To Talk!”

With that, he stormed through the door. As it opened, it revealed the four younger Paladins, eyes wide, who had planned on going in until they heard shouting and were too worried about the relationship between their leader and his closest friend to not hear the end of it. They weren't going to hear the end of it.

“Matt?” Pidge asked quietly, concerned, as he stormed past them.

“What?!” he snapped. The look of distress on his little sister's face made him regret responding at all. “Sorry,” he muttered walking away and turning left at the first corner so he would be out of sight.

She knew better than to follow him. Instead, she and the other two followed Keith in to check on Shiro, who had his head buried in his hands, eyes quietly leaking tears. Keith sat down next to him and hugged him from the side.

“You two will figure this out,” he promised. There had never been a disagreement the two of them hadn't figured out. There had never been a disagreement quite like this one, either.

“I just want him to be able to talk to me,” Shiro repeated. His voice was made of broken glass.

_ ‘We want you to be able to talk to us too,’ _ was the unspoken thought between the four.

 

 

The tension in the air during dinner was ice. Matt hadn’t shown up to eat with them, and no one had seen him since he left the rec room. Athridir had suggested tracking him down, (which was something he, Thace, and several other aliens on the ship were capable of doing,) but Sam told them that that would be a bad idea.

“He’ll show himself to someone when he feels ready, crowding him now before that will be counter-productive.”

“How do you know that?” 

“He's my son Hunter, I raised him.”

“Mom raised him,” Katie remarked without thinking. Sam sighed, closing his eyes.

“You know what I mean Katherine.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“Wait, what do you mean your mom was the one to raise him?” Hunk asked. 

“Well, Colleen and I got married out of college, and after that I found a job at the Garrison, but we couldn't afford to live near there so we continued our long distance relationship while I lived in staff housing and she lived with her parents in Indiana. She always knew she wanted to start a family early, and we had many discussions on how exactly we would do that. Her parents said that they would be fine with her having a child in their house without me in the picture, her sister still lived, lives with them, so there would be plenty of help with the baby, and so Matt and Katie happened. The three of them didn't move out until Katie was three, and Matt was already ten, so that's what she meant by that,” Sam explained.

“Oh.”

“We used to joke that we had five parents,” Katie said with a smile, “Our parents, our grandparents and then aunt Christina.”

“It took two generations to handle you two,” Sam grinned.

“Mostly just Matt, and he still got into trouble.”

“It truly is a talent of his isn't it.”

“What would he do?” Lance asked.

“Oh man, how many trees has he fallen out of?”

“More like how many times was he sent to the principal's office,” Katie chuckled.

“That too,” Sam sighed. “I mean, he wasn’t used to a school setting and even with accommodations it was a pretty rough transition so your mom and I weren’t exactly surprised.” 

“True.”

Since the conversation about Matt had died down, Hunk decided to ask something that's been on his mind for the past few minutes.

“Thace, why do you look different all of a sudden?”

“I have Altean genes, from my mother. I simply forgot to come out of my form that hides them until Princess Allura pointed it out to me.”

“Wait that means you aren’t the only Alteans then!”

“No, actually,” Allura said, smiling sadly, “His mother is half altean, she was a child when I was put into the cryopod.”

“She’s actually Allura’s cousin!” Coran explained like it was just some sort of fun fact. “Alfor’s brother Kaana married the Galran Empress before the war.”

“Wait, Empress? You mean Zarkon wasn’t in power when the war started?” Shiro asked.

“Well-”

“-It’s all very complicated family history,” Thace interjected, “We don’t need to talk about it now.” Lance noticed Keith’s expression go from puzzled to bewildered, both emotions set under a sharp frown. 

“You alright?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” Keith replied, too quick and too dismissive. 

“You sure?”

“Mhm.”

“Shouldn’t we learn about what happened though?” Shiro asked. “I mean we’re dealing with the fallout of the war, we should be learning about what happened to begin with.” Allura and Coran looked at Thace, who sighed.

“Sahlrin was the Empress of the Galra planet, and the Red Paladin at the time,” Coran began. “Zarkon was one of the Lords in her court. Political tensions arose when people wanting to incite conflict brought up how the one in charge of the planet and their leader hadn’t been chosen by the Black Lion, the one who leads Voltron, making a case that Zarkon would be a better fit for Emperor than she.”

“And then she and the Blue Paladin became mates, and while as a species we are very open about mingling with other races, previous issues between our people and the Alteans were inflated and used against the three of them,” Thace stated. “Civil war broke out, and because it was on the behalf of Zarkon, it became an issue for the Paladins, and made relations between our planets… difficult. Our planet was destroyed by a set of bombs that triggered weak points in the earth and made it all crumble into the core. A lot of people, including my grandmother and mother, were off the planet due to negotiations at the time, but it was only them and others who were in other solar systems who survived.” 

“Who did it?” Pidge asked, horrified. 

“We don’t know,” Allura answered, “Whoever did would have died.” Thace’s expression was tight, displeased. Coran shifted uncomfortably, seemingly absorbed in eating his goo.

“Wait, how do you know it was bombs that caused it then?” Hunk asked.

“One of them was found before it went off, they reported it to Sahlrin while she was on the ship. They tried to stop it, evacuate people, but there just wasn’t enough time.”

“Wait so if Sahlrin and Zarkon are still alive, does that mean the blue, yellow and green paladins could be too?” Pidge asked.

“My father was the Yellow Paladin, and my uncle was killed by Zarkon before the planet was destroyed, trying to convince him to make the revolt stop. I’m not sure of the status of the Green Paladin.” Allura looked questioningly at Thace.

“She passed away before I was born.”

“But she lived?”

“A while longer, yes.”

“What did she die from?” Pidge asked.

“Old age and complicated injuries wore her down.”

“Oh.”

“Wait so this all means you still have family then, right?” Hunk asked excitedly, “If you're cousin's still alive!”

“Yes,” Allura said with a smile, “it does.”

 

He can’t sleep. It just won’t happen. Some days his brain is just like that. Things just don’t happen on those days. Tonight, it just happens to be sleep. On a good night his mask and borrowed headphones help, but this clearly is far from any kind of good night. He groans inwardly, rolling over and shucking the sleep aids off of himself in defeat. He remembers something Hunk told him back at the Garrison about how even just laying in bed trying to sleep is proven to be better than just getting up, but doing that is  _ so boring _ and honestly he’d rather be barely functioning than bored. 

But he’s even less use to them if he’s barely functioning.

The thought presses tight around his chest and his breath comes quicker than it should because of it, but he can’t push it away. 

He definitely won’t be able to sleep  _ now _ . 

He lets the feeling sit as he gets dressed, looking at the clock. It’s about one in the morning according to the castle’s schedule. That meant Pidge would probably be awake around the hangar still, unless Hunk or someone, maybe Sam, or Thace lately, had dragged her to bed. He would avoid that part of the castle then. He didn’t need to bother her with his problems. She was doing important things, experiments that would actually help them. He shouldn’t get in the way of that.

He decided to wander through an area of the castle he hadn’t been through yet. Up some stairs, down a few different corridors, just walking, alone. Until he realized he wasn’t alone, probably. Not according to the faint noise of something being repetitively thrown against a wall he wasn’t. His curiosity overcame his anxiety, and he followed the noise. It lead him to a hallway with an open door. He peeked in. The room had windows to space, the faint light from stars and galaxies softly outlining Matt, who Lance barely knew. He caught something, a ball, where’d he get a ball from? And glanced at him before pulling his arm behind his head and throwing the blue basketball sized sphere into the wall again. A hard  _ Thwack _ echoed through the air and it came back at him, above him. He caught it with the hand he threw with, up behind his head. The move transitioned into the throwing position in a moment, his arm never stopped until the ball had left it again. 

“You played water polo?” Lance asked eventually, leaning against the doorframe.

“Mhm.”

“Where’d you get the ball from?”

“Fucked with settings in the training room. Grip’s off as shit but it’s the right size so it’ll do.”

Lance was quiet for a bit before speaking again. “You didn’t come to dinner.”

“Not hungry.”

“You should probably sneak down to the kitchen and grab something while everyone’s still asleep.” 

Matt caught the ball, but looked at Lance with a smirk instead of throwing it again. “I don’t think the others would like you encouraging my avoidant tendencies, kid.”

“I don’t think the others would like you not taking care of yourself in order to avoid them either.”

“What do you know about what they would or wouldn’t like?” The wall was hit with another sharp  _ Thwack _ . Lance shrugged half-heartedly. “You okay?” Matt asked.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

_ Thwack _ .

“Liar.”

Lance bristled at the accusation. The man was right though. He was a liar. Every time one of the other paladins asked him if he was okay he lied to them. They all had their own problems to deal with. He didn't need to add his sorry ass to their equations. They had enough to worry about. Everyone had enough to worry about without him.

“Can't sleep.” There. A truth. Suck it thought-process he had told the truth that time.

“That sucks.” Matt’s stomach growled. He looked down as the ball sailed past his head. “Oh fuck I guess it is time for food.” He kicked the ball up into his hands when it came rolling back from hitting the wall behind him. 

“Are you getting something to eat?”

“I am now, yeah.”

Lance followed Matt because he had nothing else to do, and Matt didn't seem bothered by it. He didn't seem bothered, but he didn't seem happy either, he probably  _ was _ bothered and just didn't want to be rude by telling him to go away. They go down a set of stairs that Lance didn’t know existed, behind an unnoticeable door, that sets them in the same hall of the training room. Lance heard something and looked up. Matt was looking at him over his shoulder.

“Hm?”

“You hungry?” Matt repeated.

“No, no I’m good.”

The door to the training room opened, and Matt stuttered to a halt. Lance was close to running into him. 

“You’re awake,” Shiro remarked.

“So’re you,” Matt said dismissively, walking past him. Shiro sighed and looked at Lance.

“Why aren’t you in bed?”

“Couldn’t fall asleep so I decided to stop trying.”

“Oh. It is better for you to just try, still.”

“Yeah, yeah I've heard.” Lance sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, walking away to further follow Matt. When he got to the kitchen area Matt was sitting hunched over on the counter with a little tub of stew steaming in his hands. “How are you holding that?”

“It’s amazing what you can do when you stop caring,” Matt replied in a lighthearted tone that countered the meaning of his words. 

“Dude.”

“What? I’m not being serious, it’s not like it’s burning hot.” It was burning hot. Lance just sighed, leaning against the goo dispenser. He’d already overheard enough gallows humor from Shiro to last a lifetime. Matt stared at him. “You sure you're good kiddo?” he asked. 

“Yeah, why?”

“Your hands are shaking.” Lance stuffed them in the pockets of his hoodie, not answering. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I’m fine, really,” he said with a smile. 

“You can talk to me, I won’t tell anyone what you say, scout’s honor.”

“You were a boy scout?”

“Nope.” His answer made Lance snort. “But seriously, you look like something’s bothering you.”

“I just miss Earth,” Lance shrugged. That wasn’t all that was bothering him of course, but it was an acceptable overarching answer to the question. Matt nodded sympathetically.

“You wanna talk about it?” Lance shook his head. The door whooshed open, and Lance stepped forward, looking behind him. It was one of Matt’s crew, insect-like, with two sets of arms, mandibles, and too many large, black eyes. They made a gesture to Matt, and Matt made the same gesture back, putting down his container in the process. Lance switched to lean against the counter next to him while the alien got themselves a plate of goo. The alien gestured to the goo, making a thumbs down, or something like it, with another hand. Matt laughed and did something else in whatever sign language the two were using. The alien and Matt went back and forth another time while Lance looked between them confused. Then they crossed their hand over what might pass as a nose while pointing behind them. Matt nodded, and they left.

“What was all that about?” Lance asked.

“The food goo is gross and I said at least they don’t have to hunt for anything. They said they’d rather have galra than this. And Shiro’s outside the door.” 

“Oh. Why?”

“Probably not sure if he should come in or not.”

“What happened back there, anyway?”

“Back where?”

“The lounge, when you were arguing.”

“He asked questions I don’t want to answer,” Matt stated simply.

“What did he ask about?” Matt sighed and shifted his collar to show the bite marks he knew Lance had already seen from when Keith introduced them. “Oh.” Lance was silent for a moment. “So I guess I shouldn’t ask about them either, huh?” he joked, trying to lighten the mood. 

“I just,” Matt sighed, “I don’t want him to worry about what happened to me, he doesn’t need to know, it doesn’t matter.” Lance nodded. 

“He only wants to know because  _ you _ matter to him, and by extension what happened to you probably does also.” Matt took a deep breath.

“Stop trying to break my stubbornness by making me feel bad,” he exclaimed in a hushed voice. Lance just shrugged. “Do you know if there’re like, markers around here somewhere? Like a place to draw?”

“What for?”

“I need to diagram some things.”

“What?”

“I need to diagram some things,” Matt repeated.

“No, I mean like what are you diagramming.”

“Oh, I need to put together some crutches, probably the ones that loop around your forearms because they’re less clunky-”

“Why do you need to make crutches?” Lance asked, completely confused. Matt looked up at him, also confused.

“Dude my leg is gone,” he deadpanned.

“But…” Lance gestured to Matt’s prosthetic.

“Well yeah I know but-” he ran his fingers through his hair, “-wait you don’t know how prosthetics work do you can’t wear them constantly the stump will literally like, rot or something-”

“Wait I thought it was attached?” Lance exclaimed.

“What?! No! Dude we can barely accept organs that aren’t our own no freaky energy magic can overcome basic human biology man hold on-” he fiddled around a few inches down from where skin met metal. There was a whirring sound and he pulled his leg out of the widening socket, metal unfolding on the outside revealing invisible seams in the contraption in order to loosen it further. “As far as I can tell they use an origami method like we do with satelli-” Shiro came into the room.

“We can take them off?!” Matt stared at him

“Kashi have you not been taking yours off?!”

“I didn't know I could!”

“WHAT THE FUCK SHIROGANE-” Matt put his leg down next to him and shoved off the counter without thinking so he could take Shiro's arm off as soon as possible. Lance, who noticed  _ exactly _ what Matt was about to do before it happened, managed to step in front of him and catch him under the arms as he realized he had half the feet he needed to not fall flat on his face. There was a moment of silence.

“Wow,” Matt said, with an odd detached tone of voice, “I just did that.”

“Yep, yep you most certainly did,” Lance replied, still holding him.

“This is why I need to make crutches.”

“That would be a fantastic idea.”

Matt grabbed his leg off the counter and Lance let go of him, opting just to stand close to the side with the residual limb as Matt put his prosthetic back on. It took a minute to orient properly, but the machine internally adjusted itself to the shape of the limb quickly and locked into place. As soon as it did Matt stood up straight and looked Shiro dead in the eyes.

“You’re coming with me young man.”

“What?”

“You’re coming with me, young man,” Matthew repeated, walking past Shiro and grabbing him by his regular arm, dragging him out of the kitchen behind him. Lance followed because he didn't have much else to do. When Matt shut the two of them into the nearest bathroom he sighed and walked passed the door. He definitely wasn't wanted or needed in there. Didn't need to make things cumbersome with his presence. He went on alone for a few minutes before hearing something else.

“I was almost done though!” A voice complained. “Just a couple more minutes and I'll be done and when I'm done I'll go to bed  _ I swear _ -”

“Don't think I won't have Coran put a child safety lock on that room, I'll code one myself that makes its security kick you  _ both  _ out if I have to.”

Oh. That was Commander Holt. He was close to the hangar. 

“I was trying to get her to go to bed too!” Hunk whined, not wanting to be roped into his friends' punishment. “Then she distracted me by explaining what she was doing and suddenly it was a quarter to two and you were there!”

“Yeah, what are you doing up so late anyway, Dad?” Pidge accused.

“Trying to wrestle a bunch of kids into taking care of themselves, clearly.”

“I'm not a kid anymore Dad I'm fourteen! And Hunk turns eighteen this year!”

“That's great sweetheart but it doesn't change the fact that you both should be  _ in bed _ .”

Lance heard Pidge let out an irritated groan. Then the three of them turned the corner into his corridor.

“What is up with you kids and your aversion to sleep?” Commander Holt exclaimed. “Lance, go to bed!”

“How can you even tell it's him?” his daughter asked.

“He's wearing blue.”

“His jacket is green.”

“It looks blue in this lighting if you squint,” Hunk stated.

“Just go to bed already, the three of you, or I'll tell Thace to monitor your rooms and make sure you're all sleeping at reasonable hours.”

“Y’all’re,” Pidge stated, giggling.

“Oh my god,” her father muttered.

 

“Is there like, specifically anti-bacterial soap? Like a gentle kind?” Matt asked, feeling around the edges of the plating on Shiro’s prosthetic for the release catch. When he found it he tugged the thing off as soon as it became loose enough. The two of them stared at the residual limb for a moment. “You’re lucky none of this is infected,” was Matt’s only comment. The scars from the first robotic hand made Shiro’s stomach turn. 

“I guess the Druids found out that humans can’t be integrated with technology to that severe a degree first  _ hand _ ,” he said, a smirk tugging at the sides of his mouth. 

“I will hit you with this,” Matt sighed, holding the prosthetic in one hand and looking at various bottles for the appropriate soap with the other.

“How do you even know what to do anyway? Did Haggar give you a user’s manual or something?” Matt snorted.

“No, Aunt Jen’s friends with one of the PT’s at work who specializes in people learning to use prosthetics so I know some care facts second hand from her. She’s legit the only reason I’m not dead yet, like between shit she’s told me and shit Dad picked up from helping her study while she was in med school.”

“Jeez.” That didn't really explain how he knew how to work a galran prosthetic, but if Matt thought he had answered the question Shiro wasn't going to bother.

“Yup,” Matt said, climbing up on the counter to see into the top shelves of the cabinets.

“You’re so fucking short,” Shiro snorted. Matt kicked him in the ribs. Shiro laughed.

“Death before dishonor,” The younger man whispered aggressively, only making Shiro laugh harder.

“Little Holt, always sitting on things in order to feel tall.” Matt glared at him silently, dissolving some soap in a bowl of water and grabbing two clean washcloths. He threw one at Shiro.

“Wash the nub.”

“Did you boil this water or something?” he asked, dropping the cloth into the bowl in surprise at the temperature.

“Karma bitch.”

“Why are you so petty.”

“Have you met my sister? It’s in our blood.”

“From who though?”

“Sam, he’s the one with three siblings.”

“I guess I wouldn’t know since I’m an only child,” Shiro sighed. Matt gasped, hand over his heart in dramatic shock.

“I’m telling Keith you said that!” Matt exclaimed. 

“No,” Shiro groaned. “Please.”

“You’ve forsaken him. I’m his brother now.” Shiro snorted.

“Have fun with that buddy.”

“We’re gonna have a fucking blast man, ghosts for days,” he said as he washed the prosthetic’s socket.

“I’m pretty sure the castle’s not haunted Matt,” Shiro said, sitting down on a little stool usually hidden under the counter.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“Adventures.”

“Oh no,” he groaned, “how do you even…?”

“I have them on my hard drive. All of them.”

“How???”

“Yar har I’m a pirate bitch.”

“Oh my god.”

“Well, actually Aunt Chris is a pirate but I mean I’ve done my fair share too so.”

“You literally. Work. In the military.”

“We’re fugitives now sweetheart,” Matt corrected. Shiro went to cover his face with his hands in embarrassment before realizing he only had one hand to do so with. Matt laughed.

“Oh shut up! You laugh at me now like you didn’t just leap off the damn kitchen counter with your One Leg!”

“Me and my One Leg are doing just fine thank you very much!”

“Lance had to catch you!”

“Yes Shirogane I know what happened, I was there.”

“Mhm,” Shiro chuckled. Matt dried the socket with a towel and put the prosthetic on the counter. When Shiro leaned over to take it back he slapped his hand away.

“You’re only supposed to wear it sometimes, just leave it off for a while alright?”

“But…”

“If something happens I’ll help you put it back on, only takes about a minute.”

“...Fine.” They were quiet while Matt changed the water in the bowl to clean his limb and prosthetic. “We should go to bed,” Shiro commented eventually.

“Sounds fake but okay,” Matt replied.

“You sound like your dad,” Shiro groaned.

“I know, I live with him.”

“I live with him too.”

“Congrats on your second dad.”

“I always wanted him to be my father-in-law.” Shiro watched Matt’s face get redder with a sheepish grin as the younger man processed the implications of what he just said.

“Did you just propose to me?!”

“Uh. Well. Do you want me to propose to you?”

“I don’t know?! We’re in the middle of a fucking  _ war _ Takashi!”

“Well we don’t have to deal with it  _ now _ , Matt.”

“What do you  _ mean _ ‘we don’t have to deal with it now’-”

“I mean our relationship.” Fuck, now his face was red too.

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah that can-it can wait. A bit.”

“Until things calm down.”

“Yeah.” The two of them sheepishly looked at the colorfully tiled floor for a minute.

“This really isn’t a conversation to have on no sleep.”

“Yeah we should go to bed.”

“My room or yours?”

“They’re next to each other Kashi it doesn’t really matter.”

“Alright mine it is. Grab the limbs.”

“What.” Shiro went to pick Matt up from the counter bridal style. “Dude what are you doing.”

“Picking you up.”

“But-”

“-I still have like half of my forearm calm down.”

“Don’t you tell me to calm down,” Matt retorted, allowing himself to be picked up, keeping the prosthetics between the two of them.

“Dork,” Shiro sighed, a smile tugging at his lips.

“Nerd.”

“Hypocrite.”

“Fuck you.”

“You’re gonna have to find some lube for that first but-”

“I’m breaking up with you.” The two of them laughed, trying to keep it quiet so they didn’t wake anyone up. 

“Where do we even put those if we aren’t wearing them?” Shiro asked, glancing down.

“Foot of the bed?”

“They’ll fall off?”

“You’re feet reach the end of the bed?”

“Close enough?”

“Wild.”

“You’re so short.”

“You shut your fuck.”

“Don’t you tell me what to do with my fuck,” Shiro responded, putting Matt down on the bed and nudging the prosthetics to the end of it. He untucked the blanket (because he remade the bed every morning, like a  _ decent human being, Matthew _ ) so they could get under it and settled down on his back next to Matt. “Do you want me to get the other pillow from your room?” he asked.

“Nah, you can take its place tonight,” Matt replied, wrapping his arms around him and resting his head on his shoulder.

“Oh,” Shiro said softly.

Matt laughed.

 

“You better not do anything funny Matt,” Pidge stated, glaring up at him in the control room from the training deck. 

“You don’t trust your own brother baby bird? I’m hurt,” he grinned.

“I don’t trust you  _ because _ you’re my brother, you ass,” she retorted.

“Can you two just get this over with?” their father asked, knowing too well that neither of them could be trusted to lead the other through the maze. 

“Totally. Three steps forward turn left and then three more.”

“Dad!” Katie yelled indignantly when her hand, smartly positioned in front of her, got zapped by the wall on her second step after turning. Matt laughed. Shiro glanced at Sam. He looked neither disappointed nor upset. He just looked tired.

“What? May as well get what you know is going to happen over with first-”

“Please just do your job,” Sam sighed.

“Alright 180 6 steps go left three right two then right again 7.” Katie, surprising the others, followed those instructions without needing him to repeat himself. “Turn left walk ten step, another left 4, right 6, right 3, and then you’re out kid.”

When they switched places Katie sent him into the wall with the first direction she gave.

“What? We’re even now,” she said after hearing her dad sigh.

“Yeah, yeah I know.”

When the other two pairs, Lance with Keith and Hunk with Shiro, were done with the exercise they turned to hand to hand combat between the paladins. 

“You’re not gonna spar with us?” Lance asked Matt. From what he had seen when they first met, it would be a good idea for them to try to go against him, with how differently he moved from the training bots, and Shiro even. 

“Don't really want to get all sweaty and gross in my regular clothes kiddo.” Lance frowned.

“But you have what Allura gave you….” Matt’s expression hardened. Then it dawned on him. “Oh! You don't want him to see you like that, right. Sorry. Nevermind.” Pidge looked over at them with a frown. Matt waved her off with a quick  _ We're fine _ that Lance almost didn't notice.

“You sign?”

“Yeah. Sometimes it's just easier, especially when there's a lot of background noise. Movement is easier than sound.”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Lance agreed, nodding his head. 

“Plus I had to learn another sign anyway, since Hands doesn't speak.”

“Hands?”

“You met them this morning, in the kitchen.”

“Yeah but…  _ Hands _ ?”

“I'm not responsible for the camp naming dynamic,” Matt shrugged. 

“Lance, stop wasting time, we need to focus on training now,” Shiro reprimanded from the deck.

“Right, yeah, sorry,” Lance called, going down to where the rest of them had already gone while he wasn't looking. Matt frowned. He was the one distracting Lance to begin with, and Lance wasn't even that far behind Pidge. 

He put it aside as something to deal with later.

 

Coran had seen some odd things in his life, especially recently with all the aliens aboard, but he hadn't seen a large pile of bedding and pillows being carried through the hallway in quite some time.

“Thace?”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?” The two men stopped. All Coran could see of the other were arms and legs.

“Commander Holt has expressed concerns about the children and I intend to help,” Thace answered, voice a bit muffled. Coran suppressed a chuckle.

“What were the concerns?”

“They don't sleep like they need to.”

“And you plan on helping them sleep by… stealing their blankets?”

“Humans are just as social as Galra, if they are going to bond and sleep well, doing so together may be a good idea.”

“So you're building another nest.”

“Yes, I am building another nest,” Thace stated, sounding slightly embarrassed.

“Will you need help? With that?”

“I will need to take the mattresses to make the first layer next.” He began to walk again.

“And where are you putting all of this?”

“In the middle of the couches. I have successfully herded them all into the hangar for the time being.”

“What do you have them doing in there?”

“I didn't tell them to do anything, just to stay in there.” Coran laughed.

“We'll have to get this nest built quickly, before they get bored!” He ducked into one of the paladins' bedrooms and hauled the mattress over his shoulder before the two of them made their way in the direction of the room the human's had designated 'the lounge’. “How are you seeing past all of that?” he asked, “did you make a small hole through the pile or something?”

“I can't see a thing, actually.”

“Oh.”

 

Thace walked into the hangar to find the kids lying around on the floor. The Holts were next to each other, Pidge working through some kind of code to translate Altean on her laptop while Matt scribbled possible designs for his new computer on a small tablet Allura had given him. Lance was behind him, showing, or at least trying to show, Shiro how to braid hair. Hunk sat next to Pidge, a bunch of ingredients from the kitchen scattered around him with a tablet of Altean recipes, trying to match the labels with words in ingredient lists, seeing what he could make.

“You have so much hair,” Lance muttered, amazed.

“We get it from our mom,” Katie replied, sounding almost cross.

“Aw, is the little Pidge Podge jealous that I have more hair than she does?” Matt teased.

“‘Pidge Podge’?” She elbowed him. “The fuck kind of nickname is that?”

“A great one,” Lance laughed.

“Oh no,” Pidge muttered.

Thace cleared his throat to get their attention.

“What’s up?” Matt asked, not looking.

“I finished what I was doing and I’d like to show you all.”

“Alrighty.” They all stopped what they were doing and followed him to the rec room.

“What… what is this?” Hunk asked.

“A bonding exercise?” Lance guessed.

“I supposed it could function as that,” Thace mused. “You’re all going to sleep here tonight.”

“Why?”

“And What is it?” Hunk reiterated.

“Galra are very social, family oriented creatures, just as humans are. So I made a nest. You will… sleep as a family unit. It may make sleeping easier for all of you.” Keith huffed quietly and turned to walk away. “Where are you going?”

“I sleep alone, thanks.”

“Socialization is necessary in order to be healthy, Keith.”

“I lived in the desert alone for a year and I’m perfectly fine, I don’t need this nest crap.”

Thace crossed his arms and Lance, who was closest to him, thought he heard him growl slightly. “I am not making this an option, Paladin.” Shiro grabbed Keith by the arm before he had the chance to get further away.

“It'll be like a bonding exercise. It'll be good for the team, especially since we haven't had one in a while. Just try and cooperate?”

“Fine,” Keith huffed stiffly.

“Yeah Keith, what's your problem?” Lance asked, annoyed. “Thace put a lot of effort into this. You too good for sleepovers or something?”

“I don't have a problem,” Keith snapped. “Just leave me alone.” He jerked his arm out of Shiro's hand. “I'll see you at dinner.” The door closed behind him.

“Why do you always have to go out of your way to argue with him?” Shiro asked, pinching the bridge of his nose, irritated. “The conversation was  _ over _ .”

Matt saw Lance shove clenched fists into the pockets of his sweater.

“Sorry,” he muttered, pushing past them and leaving too.

“Looks like you're going to need all the bonding you can get,” Thace murmured to Matt as the others went their separate ways.

 

“Lance?” Matt asked, standing outside the Blue Paladin’s door. “You alright kiddo?” When there wasn't an answer he figured he may have been wrong in assuming Lance had gone to his room, but pressed the button to open the door anyway, just to make sure. He hadn't been wrong. Lance was sitting in the corner made by the end of the bunk and the wall, curled in on himself and pressing his head into his knees.

“Go away,” the boy croaked.

“You know I'm not gonna do that,” Matt sighed, walking over and sitting next to him, sliding over a bit so their shoulders nudged together. “Is this about what Shiro said?” Lance shrugged. “I'm not going to try and make excuses for him, it's was kind of a dick thing to say.”

“He's right though,” Lance said quietly. Matt winced.

“How is he right?” The boy shrugged. “I'm gonna need a bit more than that buddy.”

“I'm just. I'm always fighting him over pointless shit. It's a stupid waste of time. He doesn't even see me as a rival.”

“Do you see him as your rival?”

“It's stupid at this point.”

“What about before?”

“He's just,” Lance sniffled. “He's always ahead of me. No matter what I do or how much I studied I'm always behind him. The only reason I was even fucking considered to get anything better than a cargo pilot was because his dumb-ass dropped out. He didn't even bother to recognize me after two years of me always being behind him.”

“You want to get ahead of him still?” he asked. Lance scoffed.

“I'd like to at least be  _ level _ with him but like  _ that's _ ever going to fucking happen,” he said deprecatingly, voice cracking.

“Hey,” Matt murmured softly, bringing his arm around him to rub at his back, “You don't have to be better than Keith, hell you don't even have to be  _ as good _ as him. You’re good here just like you are.”

“How?” Lance croaked, taking Matt off guard. “I don't  _ do _ anything. Everyone else here is useful and I can't do shit!”

“Lance that's not-” Lance looked up angrily, eyes bloodshot.

“Katie can hack anything, we wouldn't be able to get anywhere without her. Hunk’s engineering has saved our asses plenty of times and I don't even  _ want _ to know what they'd be able to do against a ship of Galra alone together. Keith's a better pilot than I'll ever be,” he pushed away the feeling of protest he got from Blue, “and can actually hold his own in a fight. Until you and your Dad happened Shiro was the only adult we had holding us together and he's the head. He’s also the one with the most combat experience... Aside from managing to pilot Blue I don't do anything like they do. I just obnoxiously take up space when I could be back home.” Matt pulled him into a hug because he didn't know what else to do. Lance was breathing too quickly and crying and definitely not okay and Matt would kill to have his mom there right now for multiple reasons but also because she knew how to deal with this kind of thing and he only had memories of being in Lance's place to go off of, which weren't quite as helpful.

“Just-just breathe with me okay? Deeper breaths. Let's go. In. Out. Alright. Good.”

They sat on the floor like this for a couple minutes until Lance's breathing slowed to normal.

“Do any of the others know you're feeling like this?” He asked quietly.

“Don't want to bother them.”

“What about Hunk? Haven't you two been friends since freshman year? I'm sure he cares about you enough that he'd want to know when you weren't doing well. That's what friends are for.” Lance shrugged.

“He's been… hanging out with Pidge more…. The closest thing to a voluntary hangout session with anyone is when Coran finds me alone and has me clean with him.” 

“Man, no wonder RSD’s been kicking your ass.”

“You know about that?”

“All aboard the shitty ADHD symptom train here pal.”

“Really?”

“Got it from mom, she's never been diagnosed but she's had it since she was a kid and knows what it is because of stuff she found on the internet as a teenager. She hoped she'd age out of it but never did. I didn't either. You're only what though, like, sixteen?”

“Seventeen.”

“There's hope for you yet dude!”

“I sure do hope man,” Lance sighed tiredly. 

Matt raised his head to look at the clock and cursed.

“Hey kid, sorry, could you look over and tell me what time it is? I can't tell if that's a five or a six.” Lance removed his head from Matt's shoulder and craned his neck.

“Six, it's almost dinner,” his voice bordering on panicked again. “Do I look like I've been crying?” 

“Well, yeah,” Matt sighed, looking at Lance's red-rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks and jacket. “But we've got like ten minutes and I know how to fix that problem in five as long as we can get you to the bathroom without anyone seeing you.”

“Alright,” Lance said, wiping at his face with the sleeve of his jacket.

Matt did a quick look into the hall and made sure the bathroom was clear before ushering Lance out of his room. 

“Wash your face with cold water, and then hold a cold washcloth to your eyes until they aren't red anymore alright?” he said, kneeling on the counter to get a fresh face rag out of the cabinet. “Why the hell do they put these so damn high?” He lamented.

“It isn't exactly a problem for anyone but you and Pidge,” Lance giggled.

“Allura's a little bit shorter than me!” Matt defended.

“Allura can grow,” Lance replied, running the water. Matt huffed in faux annoyance, making sure to grin at Lance so he knew he wasn't  _ actually _ annoyed with him. Lance grinned slightly back and Matt deemed it a success. 

 

“Takashi can we talk for a bit?” Matt asked after dinner, pulling him aside where the others weren’t going to hear them. 

“Yeah?” he replied, slightly nervous. Matt not calling him some shortened version of his first or last name was pretty much equivalent to an angry parent using your full name to make sure you knew you fucked up. “What’s wrong?”

“Lance,” Matt stated bluntly, not clearing up Shiro’s confusion at all.

“What did he-” The look of anger on Matt’s face caught him off guard and made him stop short.

“ _ He _ didn’t do anything, and you just assuming he’s messed something up is telling enough.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You really upset him with your comment about him and Keith earlier, and you nagged on him during training for coming down after everyone else when he wasn’t even that far behind and  _ I _ was the reason for him being later to begin with. When was the last time you actually praised him when he did well with something? I know you have a lot to deal with but you can’t just focus on Katie and Keith because they’re the ones you know better.” Shiro didn’t know what to say to that.

“How did you know I upset him?”

“He’s a good actor but I’ve always been pretty hyper aware of when people are upset so with him also having ADHD it wasn’t that hard for me to tell. You don't talk to him as much as you do Keith or Katie either. Just? Be more careful about what you say to him? He thinks he doesn't bring anything important to the team other than flying Blue-”

“-What? He's the best shot we have-”

“Well why don't you fucking tell him that then?!”

“I do!”

“Clearly not enough to outweigh all the negative shit you tell him too, then.” Shiro ran his human hand through his hair. 

“He’s just,” he sighed. Matt crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows. “He has so much potential, if he just focussed more….”

“We don’t have pharmacies out here Takashi.”

“I know that.”

“And besides, we need to let them be kids as often as we possibly can right now. Just leave it be for a little, alright? I can show him some things if he wants me too.”

“Alright.” Matt began to walk away, but Shiro caught him on the shoulder.

“You’re not still mad at me, are you?”

“Depends on how you proceed,” Matt said seriously before smirking and elbowing Shiro in the side. “Come on, I think Thace is already getting everyone  _ nest _ led in.” Shiro put his hands to his face and groaned.

 

The nest was layers of mattresses, with pillows where they didn't fill, and pillows where the base of the couch rose up. Fluffy blankets concealed them all, with even more pillows and blankets to be grabbed by the occupants as needed.

“So this is how Galra sleep?” Lance asked, looking at Thace.

“Yes,” he replied, perking up. “Children go in the center, while the adults of the pod make a ring around them.”

“What's a pod?” Hunk asked. “Isn't that like. A dolphin thing?”

“Pods are family units within a group, usually siblings and their children, sometimes mates make pods with other pairs they get along with to raise their children together, it can vary.”

“Neat.”

“You’re a soldier though,” Lance frowned. “How do you sleep if you're used to being with everyone like that?”

“Older troops tend to form their own makeshift pods,” Thace sighed. “Newer soldiers sleep with heavy covers that simulate the weight of others around them.”

“So that's why this thing is like, fifty pounds,” Pidge muttered, shifting one of the fuzzy blankets in question with her foot.

“Yes,” Thace chuckled. Matt kneeled at the side of the nest, his sister's computer on the seat of the couch.

“Everyone likes rain, right?” He asked.

“I love rain,” Lance stated.

“Yes Lance, that's no secret,” Pidge replied. Lance said nothing after that.

“Hey, this is a bonding activity, be nice,” Matt reprimanded.

“Yeah…?” She frowned.

“The way you said that made it sound like him talking about rain is annoying,” Matt stated.

“No?” Pidge frowned more, and Matt dropped the subject since it was now obvious that Pidge had made the comment neutrally. Shiro saw Lance quietly sigh in relief and realized how badly he took even small comments that weren't intended to mean anything. He began to wonder if he was taking their occasional teasing the same way. If he was….

The sound of heavy rain against an open window flooded through the room from the laptop's speakers. The sound quality was fantastic.

“Is that good for everybody?” Matt asked, looking at Lance. Lance nodded happily. Shiro chuckled to himself. Matt wasn't exactly subtle about who he held in priority. When no one said anything Matt put the file to loop. Then he looked at Shiro with a smile full of trouble. “I guess it's Time For  _ Bed _ ,” he announced, launching himself back-first into Shiro's chest and sending them both flat with a bounce, a squeak, and a chain of twittering laughs. Matt bent his head back until he was seeing Shiro upside down and gave him a wide, doofy grin. 

“Why are you like this,” Shiro sighed, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth despite his effort to appear serious.

“Give me a hand,” he said, rolling off of him instead of answering. It was never a real question when Shiro said it anyway. Shiro reached for his prosthetic and hit the release, tossing it onto Matt’s chest. Matt laughed and held it up.

“Perfect!” he exclaimed before frowning and undoing something with his nail. “Hags… jeez…” he muttered. Everyone stared at him silently. He poked a couple wires around, frown deepening. “Oh man,” he groaned. Shiro blanched slightly. “The fuck were you doing buddy.”

“What’s wrong with it?” he asked anxiously. Matt glanced at him and then moved wires back.

“She was  _ really _ grasping at straws with this one dude,” Matt sighed. “I’ll… deal with it… later.” He put it on the couch and undid his leg.

“ _ What’s wrong with it? _ ” Shiro repeated.

“Nothing  _ really _ ,” Matt stalled, “I mean. It’s  _ functional _ .” The way he said it implied that whatever Haggar had cobbled together barely scraped the barrel of functionality. “Don’t worry about it. I can strip it later and make some new plans.”

“If we have the time for it.” Shiro doubted they would.

“I’ll ask the Princess if we can go somewhere empty to bide us time. Anyway, it’ll do, it’s sturdy, you’ll be fine.”

“Well what the hell is wrong with it then?!”

“It’s so fucking inefficient!” Matt exclaimed with heavy gesturing, “Like I could probably take it apart and put it back to its current power and have like, a third of the shit that’s in there left over!”

“Wait seriously?” Pidge asked, sitting up. Matt stared at her, eyes laced with regret.

“We have to go to bed now Katherine.”

“God damn it,” she swore, throwing herself back down. Thace tried not to laugh and failed. Then the door opened unexpectedly. Allura.

“I’m going to sleep with you,” she announced, throwing the pillow the mice usually slept on down on the couch. 

“Oh okay,” Matt replied, now completely derailed from the problems with Shiro’s prosthetic. She climbed into the nest and sat down. 

“Well then, you all are set, it’s time for lights out,” Thace said, turning the light off before he left the room. 

There was quite a lot of shifting around in the dark, but once it was over Matt was between the wall of the nest under the laptop and Shiro. Allura lay next to Shiro, with Pidge at her back. Keith wedged himself in the place opposite of Matthew, back to Lance and Hunk. It was like a sleepover with a curfew.

 

Shiro was on an examination table again. He couldn’t move. The straps were too heavy and the lights were too bright and everything was metallic and his arm was gone and  _ he couldn’t move- _ Haggar loomed over him menacingly.

“Shiro?” 

What?

“Shiro, wake up.” That wasn’t what Haggar’s voice sounded like. He jolted awake. He wasn’t strapped down. He wasn’t on a table. “Are you alright?” someone whispered next to him. He jumped and turned his head. It was Allura. It was just Allura. She was curled into him, arm resting over his stomach. 

“I’m fine,” he whispered back. She was close enough for him to see her frown despite the dark. 

“You’re shaking.” There wasn’t much point in denying that one. 

“Did I wake you up?’ he asked guiltily.

“Yes,” she admitted, “but I fall asleep quickly.”

He felt sweaty and gross, and couldn’t possibly imagine why she still wanted her head on his shoulder. Matt woke up with start and a sharp inhale. Shiro realized what the weight on his chest was. 

“You okay?” he asked. Silence. “Matt?” Allura brushed her hand against Matt’s arm. He jumped and pressed his back against the wall again. She quickly took her hand away but it changed nothing. Shiro was ready to lift his back and free Matt’s arm so he could turn away if he needed to like the night before, but Allura said his name again, and this time he responded. 

“Sorry.” It was more of a breath than a word.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Allura frowned. Matt curled up, taking his arm back and hugging the now bundled up blanket to his chest, head still on Shiro’s own. Shiro reached out to rub his back before realizing Matt wasn’t on top of the arm with the hand attached. He decided against the awkward residual-limb-pat with a sigh. Allura shimmied closer, and Shiro sleepily wrapped his arm around her shoulders so it wouldn’t be trapped between them.

“If either of you wish to talk about it,” she paused, “ _ if _ ... You can both talk to me. I’ll listen.”

They thanked her, all three of them silently knowing neither man intended to follow up on her offer.

“Goodnight,” she said finally, leaning over to kiss them each on the cheek, and then burying her face in between Shiro and the blanket on their side so it wasn’t visible.

 

Allura was woken again by someone shaking next to her, and rolled over to see what was going on. Pidge was sitting up, laughing quietly into her hand. When she saw Allura she motioned for her to sit up as well.

“Look at Keith,” the girl whispered, pointing. Allura stifled a laugh in her own hand as well. Keith, who had begun the night back to back with Lance, against the wall of the nest, was now being held between the Yellow and Blue Paladins with Hunk curled around his back and his head under Lance’s chin, hand grasping blue fabric. Hunk’s long arm was easily draped across both of them, hand at Lance's back, effectively holding the sandwich together. Pidge grabbed her orange tablet and quickly began to snap pictures.

“Neither of them will be able to deny  _ this _ 'bonding moment’,” she snickered. Allura held back another laugh. 

 

Lance and Keith slept the latest out of the seven of them, seeming to come to a silent agreement to not mention what everyone had obviously seen.

“Did you sleep better than you usually do?” Thace asked Keith in the hallway.

“Maybe,” he replied, not wanting to give the man the satisfaction of being right.

He still didn't miss the knowing grin sent his way.


	3. Drowned Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a slight accident. It won't be as slight as it seems.

The mission was simple. A small planet had reported Galra presence in one of their forests. Several tribes had gone silent, and the remaining four banded together and called for Voltron, fearing the worse for their allies. The Paladins were to locate the base, free what natives they could find, and destroy whatever was left. Thace said that it would be a quick mission, with how far away the planet was from any major empire activity. They shouldn't be able to get any sort of backup in, if a signal even made it to anyone.

But Matt complicated things slightly.

He wanted to go with them.

“I can disable their systems myself Matt,” Pidge said, crossing her arms.

“Yes I am aware of that Katherine,” Matt replied, hands on his hips, “but that's part of the problem. You're the only one of the five of you who can quickly and efficiently do that, which means you are unavailable if one of the others needs backup or if you need to form Voltron until you are done bringing down their systems. What I'm saying is that with me there as well, you’re free to do whatever needs to be done beyond that because you can leave and I can finish the job. Also, not that you can't handle yourself or anything if you've stayed out of the pods this long, but having someone else watch your back while you're busy is safer. If it's me, then in this case the other four can focus on saving whoever is left from the tribes and they'll be more likely to get them all out safely.”

“It is a solid point,” Shiro stated.

“I may be able to find some spare armor your size,” Coran admitted. “Having Matt with you all would increase the team's flexibility for this mission.”

“You’re sure you can infiltrate whatever base they’ve built?” Allura asked.

“I built a rebellion on almost that ability alone Princess, if I couldn't I wouldn't be standing here,” Matthew replied. She nodded.

“Then it's decided. Coran, find him some armor. Matthew will fly in the Green Lion with Pidge to infiltrate and shut down the base. When they're done the rest of you will get in and free the people they’ve taken prisoner. You will leave as soon as you all are able.”

Matt followed Coran to a storage room, and Shiro was surprised to see that Athridir, who had been standing in the background for the mission briefing with Star on his shoulder, didn't follow.

“You aren't going to come with us?”

“Why would I join you? You have enough brute force on your team.”

“Well, you do follow him everywhere,” Pidge commented. Star let out a noise Shiro interpreted to be a laugh. Athridir bristled slightly.

“He can take care of himself just fine, there is no need for me to join you on the mission.” Pidge smirked while Shiro nodded, and the Paladins left the bridge to suit up. 

“Why is it that you follow him around the castle anyway?” Allura asked out of curiosity. Thace perked up his ears. He had been wondering the same thing. 

“Habit,” Athridir shrugged. Star grinned.

“Habit out of worry, I think is what you mean,” she whispered in his ear.

“Who isn’t worried?” he muttered back.

 

 

“Alright Pigeon you ready to do this?” Matt asked, walking into the Green Lion’s hangar. His armor resembled that of the Paladins, however it was thinner, closer to the body the way Princess Allura’s armor was, colored in white and maroon. His hair was pinned up at the nape of his neck.

“Ready if you are Magpie,” she teased back playfully, elbowing him in the arm as they boarded the Lion. “Do you not have a helmet?” She looked back at him from the pilot’s seat.

“No, there wasn’t one in the armor set that fit me.”

“Huh.”

“Anyway can you guys hear me?” he asked, speaking into a com in the forearm of his armor.

“Yeah I just heard double of you in my helmet,” Pidge confirmed.

“Loud and clear babe,” Shiro stated. Keith snorted over the comms.

“Babe?” Hunk asked.

“What?”

“You called him ‘babe’,” Lance commented. 

“I did?” The two men flushed pink. Pidge looked back at her brother again and wiggled her eyebrows at him. 

“Shut up,” he hissed.

“Didn't say anything.”

“Said enough.”

“You want me to quiet my eyebrows?”

“Yes. They’ve been quite loud recently and the neighborhood has filed complaints.” Pidge snorted and flew out of the hangar, Matt sitting in a little crevice that had a shelf like bench in the space behind her.

“You good back there?’ she asked.

“Peachy.”

“...I’m not counting that as an answer is that a secure enough seat or not?”

“It’s fine.”

“Good.” They were quiet while she approached the planet in need until she spoke up again. “Did they give you anything to defend yourself with?”

“They never gave Shiro anything,” Hunk commented. Katie hadn't realized she was still on the comms.

“Wait, what do you mean they didn't give you anything?” Matt asked, a touch of anger in this voice.

“Well, Zarkon has the bayard, so I just don't have a weapon aside from my arm.”

“Yeah but we didn't even realize you could use your arm as a weapon,” Hunk stated, “You figured that out during the mission.”

“They sent you on a  _ mission  _ without a way of defending yourself?!”

“It was fine.”

“That is  **not fine** !”

“Well I aint dead ‘cuz of it!”

There was complete silence.

“Did you just,” Keith wheezed, trying to stifle his laughter.

“Damn Kashi I guess me and Keith really have rubbed off on you,” Matt chuckled.

“Shut up.”

“ _ Keith and I _ ,” Pidge whispered. Matt shot her a glare.

“Ghost we gotta use as many contractions from now on as possible I’m never letting him live this down,” he said.

“Bless your heart Holt that’s a great idea.”

“Oh my word,” Pidge muttered. The two boys snorted.

“Katie, don’t,” Shiro pleaded.

“What the hell is going on?” Lance asked.

“Yeah, you guys have lost me,” Hunk stated.

“Keith and I use southern slang to annoy his brother,” Matt answered.

“Wait Keith has a brother?” Lance asked, even more confused.

“My family fostered him for a while,” Shiro explained.

“What happened to your family?” Lance asked, directed to Keith.

“Lance,” Hunk warned.

“Crap, sorry, neverm-”

“-Not everyone's parents decides that they want them,” Keith responded bitterly. Lance cursed his impulsiveness for ruining everything. Matt grimaced in sympathy.

“Sorry,” Lance said, barely audible over the comms.

“It’s fine.” It clearly wasn’t fine. The wave of discomfort could be felt through the mental link. Katie grimaced. 

“Alright, I see the base. I'm going to land her in some tree cover nearby so they don't see us get out.”

“Alright. Tell us when their systems are down,” Shiro said. “And Matt? Be careful, please.”

“You’re not the boss of me.” Katie could practically feel Shiro’s eyeroll as she landed. Matt stood up as soon as they were down. “Later Captain,” he teased.  She heard a quiet, embarrassed ‘oh my god’ from Shiro’s side of the line. The boys laughed, but tried to keep it down.

“Okay,” Katie said, activating her bayard. “Time to get to work.”

They walked quietly through the underbrush, Matt ahead, until he stopped suddenly, holding his arm out to catch his sister. She looked down and saw the problem. A creek, several yards across, was in their way. The water still and muddy, neither of them could see even a half a foot down. Matt looked left and right as Pidge looked at the tree branches on the other side, trying to judge which one would be strong enough to hold them both grappling across. Matt elbowed her in the arm and nodded to their left. She leaned past him to look, and saw a small plank bridge. There wasn’t any kind of railing, but it looked solid, about a foot above the water. She nodded, and the two of them crossed. 

“The vent shafts always lead outside,” Matt whispered. “I can get in through one of those and then open an entrance for you, unless you can close the vent so no one notices and want to follow me.”

“I don’t think many Galra can fit in vents, with how much larger they are than us.”

“What? No I meant you can close it behind you so no one notices it’s open, and then follow me if you want.”

“Oh, okay. We’ll see.”

“Or if you want to give the others less to deal with we can just brute force it,” he said with a smile, mostly joking.

“It’d slow us down.”

“True,” he nodded. “Alright, vents it is.”

They snuck around, and Katie noticed how well Matt knew the gaps in the guards' rounds. His timing was well practiced.

“Do you know how to use a bot to hack into secured doors already?” He asked.

“Yeah?”

“Okay, good. Um, if that doesn't work just give me a shout, they might’ve changed protocol around everywhere and not just where I was, but back at the camp if a bot was offline because of me the security system wouldn't accept it's access codes, so if you run into that I can deal with it.”

“How exactly would you deal with that?”

“Live soldier, knock him out, use his hand. Can't kill him before that because it's the same problem as with the bots but-"

“-How the fuck do you even know this?!” she whispered.

“Well I couldn't fuck with the live staff at the camp but at the central base I got out a couple times, discovered shit, the works.” Katie made a mental note to weasel information on _just_ _what exactly the fuck he had been doing prior to this_ out if him at a later date. Dad would only know up to a certain point, and he refused to tell her anything about what happened to Matt because 'if he wants to tell you he’ll tell you himself, I'm not going to start an argument by letting you know things he doesn't want you to,’ which was reasonable in the annoying way their dad was usually reasonable whether the two of them and Mom followed his reasoning or not.

Within minutes the two of them were in and out of the vents, Katie followed her brother carefully every duck and turn, avoiding the sentries with ease. It was silly, she thought, that the robotic ones didn’t have a 360-degree range of vision. It was to their advantage though. They took out a troop of three, and Matt put the two they didn’t need in a storage closet before hoisting the other over his shoulder. Pidge didn’t ask how he knew one would be where it was. 

_ Control room _ Matt signed, pointing to a door as he set the android down for her to use for hacking. 

_ On it _ , she replied. She got in in almost no time at all, moving on to hack into their security systems. Matt stayed outside the door, knowing a system trip like that would tip them off, if drones being taken out hadn’t already. It didn’t take long. Katie was halfway through the system when Matt elbowed the door panel and locked her in, firing the blaster he’d stolen from one of the droids. 

“Why did you do that?” she asked through the coms.

“Makes sense for them to target the one doing the work, can’t have them get a run by just ‘cuz the door’s open,” he replied hastily. “Just keep on it, don’t worry about me.”

“What’s going on in there?” Shiro asked.

“Basic security, nothing we didn’t expect or need to worry about buddy we’re good.”

“Just tell me if anyone gets injured.”

“Do you mean ‘anyone’ or do you mean Matt?” Katie teased. The boys could hear the wolfish grin in her voice.

“Yeah Shiro stop playing favourites,” Hunk added.

“We exist too ya’ know,” Lance continued. They all snickered at the exasperated sigh that followed. 

“Kids, stop pestering your leader,” Commander Holt cut in.

“Yes Sir,” they all replied, his children not as seriously as the rest of them. The base went dark before the backup generators, hacked to rout only to doors and lights, fired on. 

“The mission’s a go boys,” Pidge smiled. “You still fighting out there?” she asked her brother.

“Not for now, but we should get out of here before more come.” 

She came out of the control room only to be steered the other direction by Matt’s hand on her shoulder. “This isn’t the way we came,” she protested before noticing the smell.

“Come on baby bird, you really think I’m gonna get us lost?” Matt said playfully. It wasn’t enough to keep her from realizing that not all the sentries that had responded to the breach were drones. They wound back to their entrance and got out the way they came in. It didn’t get eventful again until they were on the bridge over the creek.

 

“Keith, buddy, chill out a bit dude,” Lance remarked, addressing the wave of anger assaulting the mental link.

“That’s not me Lance,” Keith replied, sounding irritated. The extra emotion was distracting.

“Well who is it then?”

“I, uh. I think it's me?” Hunk spoke up. “Not  _ me _ me like. My lion.”

“Is something wrong?” Shiro asked.

“I don't know? I'm not really… all I'm getting over here is like? He's really pissed about the Galra being here? In general? Like the area. He's just really territorial all of a sudden and  _ needs them gone _ . I guess.”

“Well we can be the offence then, Keith, Lance, focus on making sure the prisoners get out safely.”

Something grabbed Matt’s ankle and pulled him into the water.

It was a lot deeper than either of them could have originally told. 

Katie put the glass of her helmet down completely so she could dive in after him, but didn’t get as far as to do that before something wrapped around her ankle too. She screamed. A chorus of concern came through the coms from everyone but she was too busy trying to see what was pulling her deeper under the water. When she did she just screamed again, but more wordily this time, which did nothing to console her panicked teammates and parent.

“OH MY GOD THAT IS A  _ TONGUE _ ! FUCK EW NO FUCK OFF  **_EW_ ** !”

There was more than one tongue. Her bayard took care of that, however, and soon the giant mouth in the rocks of the bottom of the creek had none at all. But that didn’t take care of the situation of Matt, or the fact that, with the water having the clarity of of a fucking  _ rock _ , she had no clue where the idiot was. The sudden realization that her brother didn’t even have a helmet made her panic. She needed to find him quickly.

“Matt?!” she yelled over the coms. Another cacophony of reactions from the others ‘-Matt?’ ‘-Is he alright?’ ‘-what’s he done now?’ being the bits she could hear over the coughing.

_ Coughing _

She yelled his name again, using her jetpack to propel herself to the surface faster. When she pulled herself back up onto the bridge she saw him on the other side, claws dug into the crack in a plank, too busy getting water out of his lungs to pull himself up. She scrambled over and hoisted him by the arms until he just rolled on. 

“Holy shit are you alright?!” she asked as soon as his coughing seemed to slow down.

“Let’s get off this.”

“What the hell is going on down there?” Their father demanded. Matt cleared his throat and spoke into the com in his arm.

“Nothing much I just almost drowned.” That earned him a horrified ‘what?!” from both Sam and Shiro’s coms, with Allura, Athridir and Thace yelling in the background.

“We’re going back to Green,” Pidge stated. “I put up the glass before I got pulled under, so I’m fine.”

“Come back to the castle immediately,” Allura ordered.

“I’m fine you guys I didn’t spend 12 years of my life on a swim team just to drown on some damn alien planet,” Matt sighed. 

“Wait I thought you did water polo?” Lance asked.

“He did both,” Shiro answered, “But he swam first and did it longer.”

“You know an awful lot about my son Shirogane.” Shiro sputtered and abruptly turned off his com. Sam laughed.

“Dad, stop it, he had enough of that before.”

“And I haven't had enough of watching you two awkwardly dance around being in a relationship?”

“Hold on what?” Hunk asked. “You mean this has been a thing?”

“I can't listen to this,” Matt stated, turning off his link. Katie laughed.

“What exactly do you mean by… relationship?” Katie heard Allura ask slowly in the background of Sam's com. Oh. That made things more interesting . She switched her com to be linked with only Lance.

“You owe me five bucks.”

“That doesn't count!” he cried.

“Dude she just asked if he and Matt were DATING why would she do that if she didn't care?!” Lance made a strangled noise of protest in the back of his throat.

“Neither of us even  _ have _ five bucks!”

“Do you admit defeat?”

“Well… yeah, but-”

“-I’ll take other payment methods.”

“The hell does that mean?!”

“A favor, a chore, I'll figure it out when the moment strikes.”

“That's not fair!”

“Why not?”

“I don't want some 'favor’-Keith you've got some sort of mini tank six o’clock-”

“-Got it, thanks.”

“- I owe you looming over my head the rest my life!”

“Oh please, I won't do anything mean~.” Matt snorted next to her. “I won't do anything  _ too _ mean.”

“Oh now  _ that's _ a trustworthy statement if I've ever heard one,” Lance said sarcastically.

“I am the  _ picture _ of trustworthy,” she crowed. Matt threw up in the bushes off to the side. She cut the link. “Are you sure you're alright?”

“I don't think what we count as 'alright’ really match up anymore kiddo.”

“That's fair, but still.”

“I’m not actively dying Katherine I’m fine.”

“Wow. That is a low bar you have.”

“Some shit you gotta get used to. Sooner the better.” Katie didn’t know how to reply to that, so she said nothing, and they walked in silence the rest of the way to her lion. “How are you guys doing up there?” Matt asked, linking to Shiro.

“Good, Keith and Lance are evacuating people now while we deal with the last of the grounded troops.”

“Good.”

“How are you doing?”

“That thing should’ve tried harder if it really wanted me dead,” Matt laughed.

“Alright buddy,” Shiro chuckled,”just let Coran look you over when you get to the castle okay?”

“Whatever you say babe,” he replied, ending the call.

“ _ Babe _ ,” Katie scoffed, rolling her eyes. Matt elbowed her in the arm.

 

 

“I don’t  _ need _ to go in a pod Coran, I’m  _ fine _ ,” Matt insisted.

“Not for fixing an injury, just a check-up to see if there are any-”

“I’m pretty sure I’d benefit most from a  _ shower _ right now.” Coran looked at Sam for support.

“And you sure you feel alright?” he asked.

“I didn't actually drown, Dad, I'm fine.” Sam looked back at Coran and shrugged. 

“Go on and take your shower then.”

“Finally,” Matt muttered, walking away. 

By the time he got back everyone had reassembled at the castle. 

“Did I miss anything?” he asked, absentmindedly braiding a lock of still-damp hair. 

“The Znti want to put a celebration together as a thank you,” Lance told him.

“It will be a formal event, and I believe they would see it as rude for you all to go in armor, so we will have to look through storage to find suitable clothes,” Allura stated, hands clasped together. 

“Oh boy, dress up,” Pidge commented, lacking enthusiasm.

“I believe I may still have dresses from when I was younger that could fit you,” Allura told her, eyes filled with excitement.

“Really?”

“Follow me!” Allura grabbed Pidge’s hand, and Pidge grabbed Matt’s hand almost out of reflex, and the two Holts were dragged without a care to Allura’s room, the mice scuttling after them. Allura opened something in the wall, and one of the sections in the floor Mat had disregarded as a design the last time he had been in there rose up to reveal a closet of some sort. He supposed it made sense for that to actually be something, aside from the large vanity and the bed there really wasn’t anything in the room. Allura dug a light blue dress out from behind a wall of colored hanging fabric. How she knew where that was neither sibling could fathom. 

“Try this on,” she said to Katie, giving her the dress and ushering her to the other side of the closet. “Now,” she said, looking at Matthew, “Help me pick a dress.”

“But you’re already wearing a dress.”

“I can’t go to a celebration in the same thing I wear every day!”

“It’s nice looking enough,” he shrugged. Allura laughed.

“Thank you, but it’s more fun to wear something different.”

“I guess that’s true,” Matt agreed. Pidge came out while the Princess was still looking through her options. The dress was a sky blue, with a pastel yellow lined v-neck and puffed short sleeves. The skirt had two layers, light blue fabric opening in the front to show a cream white layer with a yellow scrolling pattern. She gave a little twirl. Matt clapped. 

“Do you think the others will wear colors coordinated with their lions?” Allura asked.

“I don’t know, maybe,” Pidge replied. The mice ran off to confirm or deny that possibility.

“Well, if they are, I have a green one similar to that, that should also fit you.”

“What color will you wear?” Matthew asked.

“I’m not sure yet.” She pulled out a tanzanite blue gown that glittered like water in moonlight. It was sleeveless, with a sweetheart neckline, overlaid with a shimmering gauzy layer that went up to the collar bones. “I've always liked this one.”

“Wear it then!” Matt encouraged.

The mice scurried back through the door (how the doors sensed them or how they hit the buttons the Holts had decided to stop wondering), carrying a pile of clothes Coran had picked out for Matt. 

“Maroon,” he stated, picking them up. 

“Shocking,” his sister commented sarcastically. He would have elbowed her but she wasn't close enough.

“They are wearing their paladin colors,” Allura confirmed. She reached back into the closet and pulled out the green dress she had mentioned before and handed it to Pidge, who went back behind the wall. Matt held out one of the shirt options Coran had sent. Allura thought he looked anxious. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh-no, just. The necklines are a bit. Low.” Allura screamed internally at her advisor for giving him such flirtatious clothing. She  _ did not _ need his help.

“Would you like the mice to find you something that sits higher?” She asked, voice pitched slightly higher than normal. 

“C-could they?” he asked, not wanting to be difficult but also not wanting his sister and a bunch of strangers seeing his scars.

“Of course, it won’t be a problem, she assured him, slightly disappointed, but figuring that, based off of Pidge's shorts, clothes didn't mean the same thing to humans and he had a reason other than not being interested.

“Thanks,” he sighed. The mice left, and then his sister came back out.

This dress had a fuller skirt than the last, but it cut away just the same. Emerald fabric revealed a silvery backed red floral vine pattern, which was brought up to Elizabethan esque slashes in the folds of the puffed shoulders. The sleeves ended above the elbow in a silver cuff that matched the v shaped neckline.

Katie did another twirl. Matt clapped again.

“Do you feel like a princess?” he asked.

“Well yeah, I'm wearing her clothes,” she replied sarcastically, but the smile on her face betrayed how much she loved being in a dress again. No one could mistake her for being a boy like  _ this _ . Matt laughed. 

“You want me to braid your hair?”

“Is there even enough to do that?”

“Three from your bangs going into a ponytail at the back, I'll have to leave the bottom two layers out but it'll work. We can even match,” he winked.

“That's just cheesy.”

“That's not a 'no’ though,” he grinned.

“No,” she sighed, “that isn't a 'no’.” Matt clapped excitedly.

“Do you have a rattail comb or something Princess?” he asked.

“A what?”

“It's a comb, but only half of it is actually comb-part and the other half is a stick that gets thinner until the end so you can section off pieces of hair with it easier.”

“Oh!” Allura exclaimed, clapping her hands together, “I do know what you're talking about, wait just a tick.” She went over to the large thing on the wall resembling a vanity and ruffled through one of the drawers, bringing out a thin bristled brush, the handle close enough to what Matt was talking about to be useful, and a handful of what looked like hair ties but almost completely clear. Matt hoped he would remember to give one of them to Keith later. He knew he hated feeling air on his neck like that, but it could be better than having it get sticky and wet during training, he wasn't sure. May as well give the kid the option. Katie sat down on the little chair in front of him and he started brushing her hair. It had been about a day since she last washed it, so it wasn't gross but it wasn't frizzy and difficult enough for him to wish he had a spray bottle to dampen it down a notch. He sectioned and tied it off into groups of three, brushing her bangs to the front, and started braiding. Katie closed her eyes. It always felt nice when her brother braided her hair. He didn't pull them as tight as their mom or Aunt Chris did. She could always go a full day with braids when he was the one to do them. The last time he had braided her hair it had been nearly as long as his own, so when he was done so quickly she was surprised. Allura added something herself  to the tied off section below where the braids came together, and put a necklace around her made of some kind of green and red metals. It was shaped like vines, with flowers budding on it. Despite the design she realized it was made of  stiff interlocking pieces, like a snake chain. She turned her head to look at what Allura had put in her hair and saw that it was a clip matching the flowers in the necklace. She felt like she was three playing dress up with her mom again.

Matt pulled his hair back and quickly did the same braids he tied Katie’s hair with.

“Show off,” Katie teased jokingly.

“I've had time to practice,” he shrugged. The mice came back in with a white, long sleeved, high collared shirt they had found. Allura changed while he figured out what to wear aside from the shirt, Katie going on ahead of them to meet up with the others. In the end Matt found a pair of pants that didn’t seem too tight, and something that looked like a vest with a v-neck like cutout that plunged in the back, edges trimmed with gold. Allura came out from behind the divider looking like a waterfall of stars cascaded from her shoulders and hips. She looked at him and chuckled.

“You’re wearing a shirt over another shirt,” she remarked. Matt’s ears turned a little pink. “It’s fine, only Coran and I will know, I’m sure you’ll look alright to the others.”

“Okay.”

He was about to leave when she called him back over to the vanity.

“Turn around,” she said, holding something. He turned, flinching slightly at her fixing something into his hair. He saw her frown behind him from the mirror.

“It's fine, just. Didn't know what to expect.” Allura nodded, almost grimly, fiddled with what she had done slightly, and then beckoned him to turn his head so he could see. She had put a bar shaped hair clip in the place she had put the flowered one in his sister's hair. The base was garnet blood glass, and over it gold, shining red like copper, was overlayed like lace. She grinned at him.

“Do you like it?”

“It's really pretty.” He grimaced internally. 'Pretty’ was a bit of an understatement now that he had said it, but the Princess seemed satisfied with his response anyhow. She reached into another drawer and pulled out a decorative comb, dangling with silver and blue netting. She put it where the twists of her bangs met in the back of her head, and asked him if it was even. He carefully took it out and put it a little to the left. He couldn't see how her markings glowed with a blush while he was behind her, with the way her hair covered her arms. Allura turned around.

“I believe we're ready,” she stated.

“I believe we are,” he agreed.

 

The Znti were tall, spindly, and spiney bipedal aliens with sections of rock like armor over their extremities. Long, thin spikes protruded from around their joints and their crested heads, which they decorated with strings of teeth and luminous stones in times of celebration, patterns and structures of strands varying from tribe to tribe.

This was certainly a time of celebration, with the Galra gone and the three missing tribes safe and sound.

The Znti had a common ground between their tribes, a cavern large enough to hold the lions and still be spacious, that had passageways to each village. The ceiling opened up to the sky with clear glass-like windows carved from one of the types of crystal that formed nearby. Colorful lanterns made from chunks of glowing stones hung like windchimes from tied bone hammered into outcrops of rock. Tapestries of beautiful scenery hung like curtains hung in front of the tunnels branching out to each village, and furs created comfortable little hide aways in the crevices of the walls. A large bonfire was set up in the center of the cavern, and the window was opened to let out the smoke. 

The Paladins, Alteans, and Matt were presented with strands of stones and teeth as gifts of gratitude from the leaders of the tribes that were saved. After these formalities, the party began.

The children stole Lance away to play games early into the celebration. Keith stood against a wall with some kind of kebab, fruit from what he could tell, with a couple of sweet tasting leaves, watching the Blue Paladin teach the energetic waist high aliens how to play tag. Hunk was at the buffet table, absorbed in a conversation with three people about the differences in cuisine between the tribes. Pidge had climbed to a high outcrop in the wall with her food and watched the action from a comfortable distance while her brother and Shiro wandered back to each other, against the wall next to the food. Shiro held a drink in a small cup he had found to be sour, bitter, and overall unpleasant, but continued to hold to be polite. Matt had already finished what he was eating and was rubbing at one of the strung up rocks. 

“What’s up?’ Shiro asked as Matt knocked his shoulder into his.

“I like the food. Hunk’s having fun with it too.”

“It’s definitely a nice change from rations and goo,” Shiro agreed, watching the adults and Allura (who was no more of an adult than he and Matt were; a lesser adult) talk to the leaders. He wondered what they were talking about. Probably some sort of treaty. They needed allies. Matt looked at the cup in Shiro’s hand.

“What’s that?” A mischievous grin spread across the other man’s face.

“I dare you to try it.”

“Alright,” Matt replied, taking the cup from him and knocking it back like a shot. Shiro internally panicked, thinking Matt would spit it out in front of their hosts. Instead he just looked at him and shrugged.

“You scared me for a second there Holt,” he laughed. 

“Honestly? I’ve had worse things in my mouth since we got launched into space,” Matt stated, staring at the cup.

“The fuck does that mean?” Shiro frowned. A look of panicked regret flashed across Matt’s face, and he grabbed and downed another cup of what Shiro had had to avoid answering the question.

“It’s not even really that bad it’s definitely better than bourbon I don’t know what the fuck Kentucky thinks they’re doing with that shit,” he rambled. A group of Znti struck up a lively song, and people started dancing. “Let’s go watch the bonfire!” He exclaimed, putting down the cups to grab Shiro’s hand, spinning him and pulling him towards the center of the cavern.

How Matt could catch the beat of what was playing Shiro had no clue, but he followed the other man's improvised lead anyway.

“Good thing I put my foot back on straight,” Matt joked with a wide grin. Shiro laughed til he was nearly red in the face. He saw Matt look over his shoulder before sending him into a spin and letting go of his hand unexpectedly. Someone else caught him and continued the twirl. When he was done turning he saw that his new partner was Allura. She dipped him low as the song transitioned into something slower, and he couldn't tell if her markings were really glowing or if it was the light, but what he was sure about was that she was absolutely beautiful.

Matt and Allura make eye contact and chuckled at how easily flustered Shiro was. Making a game out of this was going to be easy fun. 

He ducked back out near the wall Keith was still standing by and elbowed his arm.

“What?” Matt jerked his head towards Lance, who Keith was still (not subtly) watching, and wiggled his eyebrows.

“Ghostie got a high school crush?”

“Shut up!” Keith exclaimed, punching the man in the arm. Matt cackled, and then coughed into his elbow.

“You should ask him to dance while they're still playing music,” he teased, but it was a genuine suggestion. Keith's face turned a brilliant shade of red. Matt was proud.

“He's playing with the kids though.”

“If you don't ask him I'll go over there, take over kindergarten watch, and suggest he ask you instead.”

“Oh my god.” Keith put his face in his hands, not moving. Matt started to leave, then he felt Keith grab the back of his shirt. “Don't make it sound like I  _ want _ him to dance with me?” He pleaded.

“I got this kiddo don't worry,” Matt reassured him. Keith didn't look reassured.

Matt glanced at Shiro and Allura as they danced. The light glinted off of the the cuffs and bottom of Shiro’s black shirt like obsidian, broken and scattered up from those points. They were a shining couple in the firelight as Allura made them spin. He saw the flash of teal and woody orange that was Lance out of the corner of his eye as the teen sprinted away from the child who was it. He was agile and quick, dodging every lunge the small alien made for him, but nothing could have prepared the Blue Paladin for when the child scampered like a mountain goat at running speed across the cavern wall and jumped on his back. Lance stumbled a bit, but managed not to fall.

“Lance is it!” The kid yelled, jumping back off of him and scattering with the rest of them. Matt caught up to him while he was laughing.

“That's the craziest thing I've ever seen a child do in my life,” Matt laughed.

“I don't know how much longer I can keep running like this for,” Lance replied, stopping to lean against the wall. 

“I can take over for you if you want to dance instead,” Matt suggested, glancing at Keith. He couldn't see his face, but he didn't need to to be able to tell the Red Paladin was making a point to not look at them.

“And who exactly do you expect me to dance with?”

“I don't know,” the young man shrugged nonchalantly, “Keith’s just been standing there the whole time, why not ask him?” Lance stared at the other teen, who was staring intently at bonfire, for a moment.

“I can't believe he's actually wearing that.”

“What?”

“The shirt. I threw it at him as a suggestion as a joke. I didn't consider that he might have thought I was  _ serious _ .” Matt snorted. Keith's shirt was definitely  _ something _ , and he could see why Lance would pass it Keith's way as a joke. It was cropped to the ribcage like the boy's jacket, with sleeves. The body of it was a solid ruby red, hanging loosely and trimmed in gold. The sleeves were gauzy and off his shoulders, loose material cuffed in gold trim above his elbows like little clouds. It was cute, and fit him nicely. 

“Well, if he wore your ridiculous suggestion the least you can do is ask him to dance,” Matt told him with a grin. He couldn't tell if Lance had begun to blush, or if his face was still red from running around so much.

“Like he'd say yes to that anyway.”

“You never know unless you try, and if he doesn't you two can just talk. I'll keep the mountain goats occupied.” Lance took a deep breath, Matt giving him a light and encouraging shove in Keith's direction.

He turned to the kids who had stopped running around since the one who was it hadn't moved.

“Lance is going to play with his other friends, so I'm going to be It now,” he told them. There was a chorus of disappointed sounds that quickly turned to exuberant screams as he took off after them.

Keith had honestly not expected Matt's idea to work, but there he was. Running around the cavern with a bunch of spikey children while Keith held onto Lance's shoulders, trying not to be awkward but also trying not to look him in the face either. The second time he tripped over Lance's feet he figured the best direction to point his eyes would be down. Lance chuckled.

“I didn't think you'd have two left, feet with how coordinated you are fighting,” the boy in blue stated with a smile, eyes shining in the light of the bonfire. Keith’s face turned a shade redder.

“You can dance with- with Hunk if you want, instead,” Keith stammered. Lance kicked himself mentally, readjusting his hands on Keith's waist.

“No no it's fine,”  _ I  _ **_want_ ** _ to dance with you _ “Not that I don't  _ want _ to dance with Hunk he's just busy talking to people, I don't want to interrupt him when he's having fun.” Keith frowned and looked up at him finally.

“You should dance with him next,” one of the Znti threw something into the fire for show, making it shoot up an emerald green. Copper Sulfate? If he was remembering that one day in chemistry properly, maybe. “It's not like he'd get annoyed with you.” He could've sworn he saw a flash of doubt cross Lance’s face before he broke into a grin.

“Maybe I will.”

Eventually the song changed and Keith left Lance with Hunk, who laughed and spun the other towards the dance floor with grace and ease that Keith knew he couldn't possibly accomplish. A light tap on his shoulder revealed that Katie had come down from her nook in the wall.

“Care to dance as my  _ brother in arms _ ?” She asked, smile mirroring her father's cat-like grin disturbingly well. It took Keith a moment to understand what she had said before he groaned.

“Not after saying that, I don't,” he sighed, taking her hand anyway as she cackled mercilessly. Katie he could look at. Especially as she told him about the bet she had placed with Lance over whether Allura had a crush on Shiro or not, and how she had won it, and as they joked that even if that didn't happen she'd have won now because of her dancing with him. When their laughter died down he looked at her and sighed.

“Seeing you and Allura almost makes me feel underdressed,” he smirked.

“Well Allura is Allura, and the dress was hers, so,” the girl shrugged.

“That does make a little sense,” Keith laughed. When they made eye contact she had a dangerous look about her.

“So,” she drawled. “You danced with Lance.” Her smile could strike fear into the heart of even the most soulless man.

“Yeah? So?” Keith replied, unable to stop his voice from pitching up slightly. She only grinned. “It doesn't mean anything!” Her giggle was full of mischief. Keith was terrified.

 

“I'm going to have to borrow him for a while, I apologise,” Allura told the children, having caught Matt by the arm. She didn't sound one bit like she was sorry, and he wasn't it then, either. The kids grumbled until the one doing the chasing continued and they had to scatter once more.

“What's up?” Matt asked as Allura lead him away.

“Well we've both danced with Shiro already,” she stated , twirling him.

_ So now it’s time to dance with each other _ , he finished in this head, blushing lightly. 

Shiro had returned to the wall, watching Allura and Matt dance together, trying not to concern himself yet over whether or not Allura had  _ intentions _ with how she had been interacting with each of them recently. Miscommunication was the tool of tired romance novels, and nothing he wanted to deal with in real life. He’d have to make sure they talked about it later. He saw Keith dancing with Hunk and quirked a smile, pleasantly surprised. He surveyed the room. Matt, Allura, Keith and Hunk were all dancing in the center of the cavern. Coran and Thace were talking to a couple adult Znti off to his left, while Sam was with Katie and Lance, in one of the cushioned alcoves in the wall. Shiro sighed. Everyone was accounted for. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment!! I'm not sure when the next chapter will come out but I have it planned, and then who knows from there.


	4. Things Are Always Better When They're About To Get Worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Almost drowning isn't very good for your health, who knew? + The Paladins get to meet the rest of Matt's crew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be longer but I'll just split it up into two, since it's already 4,000+ words and I haven't updated since July or something.

If it wasn't for how draining having both a mission and an unexpected celebration was, Shiro would have been shocked at how easily he fell asleep that night. But it wasn't a dreamless sleep, and as per usual he slipped out of bed (quietly, more so than usual with Matt next to him but not  _ on _ him) and put on his arm and armor, ready to fight off his built up energy on the training deck. 

 

He jolts awake and slams his forehead into the wall for it immediately. He feels sweaty and gross and  _ already _ has a headache, but sitting up just makes him feel dizzy and  _ worse _ . The room is tinged with a pale blue light and every line in sight is fuzzed out and soft. He knows his vision is going again but that's no excuse for everything to suddenly be white and blue. 

His leg is gone? It's there, he's fumbling with it now but it isn't shackled and it's not on him, both are peculiar and he can't wrap his head around why the fuck she would be doing this. He stands up and goes to the door, as he always does when he wakes up in a new cell. The pressure in his head increases and his vision fuzzes out to black for a moment but that's fine. He can deal with it, leaning against the wall until he can see again. He assumes he must be sick from  _ something _ because his throat feels like death and when he coughs it's wet and painful deep in his chest but it isn't something he can worry about now.

Maybe  _ that's  _ what she moved him for.

They got him sick just to see what would happen. 

'Can’t be anything she expects to kill me,’ he reasons, bracing himself on the wall. 'There’s no replacement after me.’

To his surprise there's a panel next to the door. The door  _ opens _ when he hits it. There isn't even a guard for him to fight on the other side.

It has to be some sort of test. That's the only explanation.

He keeps his hand along the wall to keep himself steady, working his way through to another hallway. It's slow work but he makes it around a corner to another corridor. The ceilings are high and vaulting. The walls are cold and it aches. Shivering aches. He can't imagine how Haggar can expect him to hold a conversation like this. She'll probably find the incoherence amusing, in the least. He doesn't remember if he's told her anything about immune responses. He doubles over in a painful, hacking cough. Hopefully he's not too out of it by the time this is over and can tell her what's lethal. Maybe he can freak her out enough to get something decent. With the way he's feeling already, he doubts he'll have to play it up at all.

 

Allura is woken up by a startling, explosive rattling noise coming from the other side of the wall across from her. She sits up in bed groggily when it keeps up, looking over at the mice and unsticking some hair from where it's glued itself near her mouth.

“What the quiznak is that?” she yawns. The mice squeak that it doesn't matter what it is, just make it stop. She agrees, rubbing at one of her eyes and throwing her legs over the side of the bed, standing up slowly. She reaches the door and wonders what time it is.

She wasn't sure what exactly she had been expecting. Perhaps some kind of malfunction of something in the wall, something that wouldn't actually be present visibly when she opened her door and looked out, though she couldn't say that she'd ever heard a sound like what she was hearing now come from the ship. Even recently, with how worn down it now was. 

She had not expected to find anyone on the other side of the wall. She had definitely not expected to hear the sound coming from a  _ human _ . Not even  _ Matt _ , who was, admittedly, capable of a variety of strange noises, rivaling even Lance and his sister.

Speaking of Matt.

He’s doubled over against the wall, coughing into his elbow, making that awful noise. She puts a worried hand on his shoulder and is about to ask him what’s wrong when he jumps, leg flickering it's violent lilac hue and going out just as quickly. He looks about to fall over so she catches him by the shoulders. He recoils instantly, stumbling backward, his shoulder hitting the wall to keep him upright.

“Don’t touch me!”

She takes a step back, not understanding why he would act like this. 

“Matthew what is wrong?” she asks insistently.

“Whatever you did to me, clearly!” he yells back, loud as he can with his torn up throat, the last word catching and sending him into another fit of coughs. She looks at him bewildered.

“I haven't done anything,” she retorts, angry at the accusation. He tries to stand upright when the coughing subsides, leans against the wall, waiting for the black dots in his vision to fade. They don't.

She lunges to catch him when his knees buckle. Something is clearly wrong, but she doesn't know what it is. Assuming Matt and Shiro had slept together again, Matt wouldn't have gotten out of the room like this (whatever 'this’, is,) if the other was still there, so Shiro must be awake somewhere. She picks up Matt's limp form and runs full tilt to the training room.

“Shiro,” she yells, “end training session!” The drone deactivates and he turns to look at her in surprise at her sudden appearance, eyes widening further as he realizes the reason for it.

“What's wrong what happened?” He demands.

“I don't know!”

Shiro puts his hand on Matt's forehead, looks cross at himself a moment, and then uses his other hand.

“He's burning up,” he mutters.

“What does that mean?”

“He's got a fever.”

“Oh yes because that just explains everything perfectly,” she states sarcastically, mildly irritated with the whole situation.

“It's an immune response that means his body is fighting off something, I don't know what it does but past a certain temperature it's dangerous.”

“Ah.”

Matt groans and cracks his eyes open. He looks at Shiro for a few seconds, seeming confused.

“Am I dead?” he whispers hoarsely.

“No?” Shiro replies with a confused frown.

“That bitch fucking killed me didn't she?” He continues, staring past him unnervingly.

“Matt-No Matt you’re fine,” Shiro insists. Matt laughs deliriously.

“Yeah, this is  _ absolutely _ what fine feels like PERFECT.” Shiro brushes the hair out of Matt's face because he doesn't know what else to do.

“I'm going to get your dad,” he decides, moving to leave. Allura makes to follow him, not wanting Matt to freak out on her again, or whatever that was that happened in the hallway.

 

Sam isn't asleep when Shiro opens the door to the room he's taken up. He's sitting on the bed, back against the wall, arms crossed. Shiro tries not to think about it.

“I think Matt's sick.”

The man mutters something he can't quite make out to himself as he stands. There's a thud outside the open door and suddenly Matt and Allura are both yelling again.

“Get off of me!”

“Why are you suddenly acting like this?!”

Shiro and Sam are in the hallway in an instant. Matt's on the floor, bracing his back against the wall trying to stand. Shiro doesn't remember hearing any doors open but Thace and Keith are awake and in the hall now also, woken up by the noise. Sam is crouched next to his son, trying to get him to breathe evenly and understand what's going on. Thace looks over at Shiro.

“Matt's sick,” he informs him, and Thace nods.

“I will get Coran.” He departs, leaving Keith standing there awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Shiro squints at him in the dim night-lighting the castle uses for the hallways at this time setting. 

“Do you have… freckles? All of a sudden?” There's a pause of confused silence between the brothers.

“No?”

“Huh.”

“I'm gonna go back to bed,” Keith yawns, heading for a door.

“That's the bathroom, Keith.”

He pretends not to hear him as the door slides shut behind him and he glances in the mirror with a frown.

Shiro looks over at Allura, who stands there seeming cross. She notices him looking.

“Why is Matthew freaking out around me suddenly? Have I done something wrong?” She asks, voice hushed.

“What are you talking about?”

“Just now! And earlier when I found him outside my room he accused me of doing something to him. I'm certain I've done nothing!” Shiro frowns, looking at her. He can't think of anything. Then he looks at Matt, on the floor next to his dad, and looks at Allura again, squinting this time, fuzzing away her lines and angles.

Oh.

“You look like Haggar.”

“I  _ what _ ?!” He should've phrased that differently.

“Well-” he starts quickly “-Matt can't see clearly, so he wouldn't have been able to make out your face, and with the white hair and your dress being sort of. Blueish? Gray? On top of the fever he clearly didn't know where he was, I'm sure he just thought you were her. You haven't done anything wrong.” He's not sure if that reassurance is going to make up for the other part of that but it'll have to do. Allura sighs and pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes.

“And how long until he realizes I am  _ not _ her?”

“Probably not long.”  _ I hope. _

 

By the time Coran is setting up medical equipment in a room across from the healing pods that no one had bothered to go into yet they had attracted one of Matt's crew. They were frog-like, with rubbery looking skin and large, wet looking hands. They were a dark, mottled orange and their mouth was as large as Athridir’s despite the much smaller body. If you looked closely you could see two lines like creases going up to, through, their lips from what passed for a nose to the center of where their neck began. When their mouth was closed the creases lined up perfectly. Their eyes were large and raised as if on hills, and all of these details almost distracted Shiro from the long scars that scraped down their throat. They introduced themselves as Persistence, with a long, triple sectioned tongue and a voice that both rattled and whispered all at once. Shiro offered his hand to shake out of habit and Persistence opted to bunting him in the shoulder with the side of their face. 

“Their hands are like glue for climbing,” Sam told him, after seeing the interaction, and the startled look on Shiro’s face, out of the corner of his eye.

“Stuck very well to Scholar once,” Persistence added with a rattling hiss.

“That was a heck of a time, that's for sure,” Sam laughed. He was sitting on a cot with Matt while Coran took swabs of the son’s throat to scan.

“Sam?” The Altean asked. “Could I look at your throat for a tic? Just for a comparison?”

“Of course.” Coran beamed a small light into his mouth and frowned. Then, taking advantage of the fact that Matt was yawning, switched to him before it could turn into another coughing fit, and frowned again.

“Am I correct to assume that the white dots should not be there?” Sam closed his eyes for a second and sighed.

“He has little lumps on the sides of his throat that I don't have, right?”

“Yes?”

“And that's where the spots are?”

“Seems to me, yes, though you can look for yourself if you wish.” Sam stood up and took the small flashlight.

“Open wide kiddo.” Sam looked for himself and wrinkled his nose. “You definitely have some kind of infection in there Maddie.” Matt groaned and thudded his head into his father's chest.

“From the water you ingested yesterday would be my guess,” Coran stated, looking at one of the swabs through something Shiro assumed to function like a microscope. “Though your body seems to have kicked into overdrive of getting it out, I’d say it's killing the bacteria just fine.” Matt groaned again, and Sam patted his head.

“Doesn't he still have tonsils?” Shiro asked.

“And adenoids, yes,” Sam confirmed. “Hopefully they won't cause any problems, but I wouldn't know if they would like this either way.” Shiro looked at him questioningly. “My tonsils were nearly the size of a finger by the time I three, and my adenoids were just as bad, so I wouldn't know what being sick with either is like.”

“Jeez,” Shiro muttered. The Alteans shot each other confused but concerned looks from over the medical equipment, but silently agreed it was better not to ask.

“I think I have pneumonia,” Matt mutters weakly.

“With your luck with infections you probably have both,” Persistence remarked.

“Since the water got into your lungs a bit too, I'm sure it's more than likely,” Sam agreed.

“With his luck with infections?” Shiro asked Persistence quietly as Coran called Sam over for more information, Thace switching with him from booting up medical equipment to sitting next to Matt.

“Galra Markings become infected quickly,” the alien said simply. “We’ve seen Fearless sick like this several times before already. He will pull through.” Shiro notices the Alteans pause and look at each other for a moment, over the hearing. He sees a pained expression on Allura's face when she glances across at Matt, but Coran is facing away from him. He doesn't see Thace’s tense shoulders or Matt's determined staring contest with the floor. 

Shiro doesn't like not knowing what happened to Matt, and not knowing what Persistence is talking about when it's obviously a piece of the puzzle, but he can't ask about it with Matt in the room no matter how out of it he is.

“I will wake Hunter, then,” Persistence says in a way that turns a simple statement into a suggestion, looking past Shiro to the back of Matt's head. Matt makes an affirmative humming noise, one of few that pains him less to make, and Persistence leaves. Shiro, unsure what else to do, spends some time looking for a pouch of water after Coran tells him they would be in one of the cabinets somewhere. When he turns back to the occupied section of the room Matt’s slumped himself into Thace’s side and the older man has already boxed him in on the other two with the two pillows within reach. He manages to slide the sheet out from under them and the cot and places it around mostly Matt as Shiro hands Matt the pouch. Shiro tries not to chuckle at the blatantly parental display of care. If Sam wasn't so engrossed in explaining what he knew about what certain symptoms meant Shiro would have expected to hear him remind Thace that Matt is  _ his _ son, in the firm but now light-hearted tone the two have taken up for the subject. 

He’s pulled away from that thought by Athridir, who slips in as quietly as possible despite the obvious noise of the door. Deciding that he probably  _ wants _ to be ignored for the moment, Shiro doesn't make any specific move to acknowledge him.

“Does your stomach feel alright at least?” he asks. Matt looks up at him blearily.

“Can't tell,” he croaks. “T’s not complaining enough over everything else's complaining… I don't know.”

Athridir kneels on the cot behind him and reaches over to put two fingers on Matt's forehead. Shiro expects a more startled reaction but it seems Matt's too tired even for that. Instead his neck just slowly disappears into his shoulders, effectively eliminating any trace of his chin due to the resulting rolls in a look that has baffled family members and lab partners alike for as long as Shiro has known him. Shiro, being at the proper angle, sees Athridir reaching out with his other hand for him next, and refrains from flinching despite the unpleasant thought that the aliens hands are large enough to probably juice his skull like an orange in a single squeeze. He doesn't think he's been this close to him before. The scales on the insides of the alien’s fingers look wrong, grayed out and dull and warped, like they aren't supposed to be there. Athridir makes a low humming noise.

“So he  _ is _ warmer than he is meant to be.”

“That's what a fever is.”

“I am aware,” Athridir remarks, blinking his lower pair of eyes at him, blue like a clear winter sky. Shiro wonders why he keeps the other three closed as he retracts his hand. “Do you feel too warm yet?” he asks Matt.

“M’ cold.”

“Well, if you wish to experience  _ more _ cold feel free to lay with me,” Athridir says with a toothless grin. Matt snorts, and then coughs again. He looks at Shiro.

“He's cold-blooded like snakes,” he states.

“ _ He’s _ warm-blooded like thermal vents,” Athridir adds, trying to mimic Matt’s speech pattern. Shiro and Thace both chuckle. Thace and Athridir’s ears flick at the sound of the door opening again. Shiro sees Keith first, then Lance and Pidge peaking into the room around him.

“What are you three doing up?” he asks, frowning. Keith should have gone back to bed already. 

“Allura made a bunch of noise and woke Keith up,” Lance yawned, “He woke me up getting back into bed.” Shiro raised his eyebrows.

“We were in the lounge,” Pidge explained. “Hunk’s in there too, but we’d need a damn air horn to wake him up this early so-”

“-Is Matt okay?” Lance asked worriedly, poking Keith in the back to get him to walk forward so they could get into the room.

“‘M good,” Matt croaked unconvincingly, scooting around to look at them. “I’ll live,” he added, seeing their concerned faces. 

“He’s sick from something that was in the water,” Sam informs them, glancing over his shoulder. “He’ll be fine with some  _ rest _ ,” he looks pointedly at his son with the last word. Matt’s resulting pout is met only with a sterner look.

“It doesn’t seem like it will be contagious,” Coran informs, several glowing screens pulled up in front of him, “so it should be perfectly safe to be near him!” 

“Oh good!” Lance says happily.

“So… Whats wrong? With him?” Keith asked, frowning. Shiro looked his brother over. The ‘freckles’ he thought he had seen on his face earlier in the dim lighting of the hallway weren’t there. 

_ Really must have been a trick of the light then _ Shiro thought. “Throat infection, lung too probably,” he stated. The kids grimaced.

“It’s fine guys, don’t worry,” Matt croaked before coughing again. Shockingly, they didn’t seem convinced by this. 

“You three should go back to bed,” Allura tells them. “He’ll still be here in the morning.” Pidge is the last one to turn and leave, Lance putting an arm around her shoulder and assuring that they’ll find something in the castle that can help him. Sam is glad he said that as the boy convinces his daughter to leave the doorway.

 

The next morning the leaders of the Znti they had saved invited everyone to eat with them in a more casual setting. Those who had stayed behind to keep an eye on the castle the previous night were convinced to switch positions, Thace and Sam staying behind with Matt instead. Team Voltron got the opportunity to meet the entirety of Matt’s crew, though Pidge already knew them. While Hunter, and sometimes Star, could normally be found near Matt when the paladins were around, the other ten seemed satisfied remaining in the wing of the castle they had all decided to occupy, away from the main happenings of the other team. The Heads (for the understanding of the translation wasn’t much better than this) of the Znti asked the Paladins of their stories, and once the explanation of how they had found the Blue Lion and been taken to the Castleship had been exhausted, stories were asked of the rest of the crew. Hunter, being the one who was trusted to act as the leader in Matt’s place, offered his first. 

His race, the Ilrahl, had been resisting occupation since he was born. His family specialized in the weapons trade, and had to sequester themselves away in the deep underwater caves of the region in order to remain a mystery to the General’s intel. When the war was decided to have been going on too long, the Galra began to destroy the landscape and pollute their waters until it became poison to breathe where they had to exchange their wares with the surface. He wasn’t sure what state his planet was in now, but by the time he had reached adulthood the outward resistance had ended out of desperation. He was arrested after a surface operation he had joined was discovered. He had bought enough time for most of his team to flee to secure locations, but he did not know what happened to the few who had stayed with him.

Star’s story was similar. Her planet had already been taken over by the time she was born, but her brother who was much older told stories from their grandmother about what things had been like before the war. She had been caught smuggling medical supplies to him, but as far as she knew, they were the only two of the rebellion who were found out. No one in her family was falsely accused, and no one else had been with her or her brother when they were caught.

Hunter translated Hands and Trusts’ story of how their planet had been destroyed and their kind, the Ghan, enslaved. They had been arrested for sabotaging machinery. There had been three more of them, the five of them hadn’t been split up when being sent to the work camp. One died from injuries before Scholar and Fearless were sent there. The other two were killed by guards during the revolt.

Persistence had also not been the only Trilch before the revolt. Before being sent to the work camp, they had run a coded underground radio system, on a different kind of frequency than the Empire’s communicators ran on. Persistence’s informants had caused much pain for Zarkon’s operations, allowing others in the complicated spiderweb of resistance fighters to apprehend cargo, fly their ships outside the trajectory of Zarkon’s vessels when in his territory, and find safe havens for freed prisoners all over the galaxy. When the Galra were on their tracks Persistence sent out a farewell signal and blew up the equipment beyond recognition so that the trail ended with them. The one in charge of the ship made the rash decision of cutting out their vocal cords as punishment. All it really did was ensure that no one could get information from them until they grew back. They didn’t grow back as well as they should have, given the circumstances, but Persistence was fine with that.

Pilot was a Tayrah; humanoid and willowy with coppery fur, face flat and the only fangless species of the group, a second thumb on each hand and a monkey-like tail. What her job had been was exactly what they had named her for. She had been a cargo pilot for the Empire when her ship was boarded by resistance fighters following information leaked by Persistence’s web of contacts. She had neither like nor loyalty for her employer, and joined them. She was not trusted quickly, but with time and honesty she became an important member of the crew. Their ship was discovered taking a shortcut through Empire territory after a schedule change that would have been known by them had it not been for the hole in the communications network after Persistence was caught.

There were three Tayrah other than Pilot still alive. Gardener (who had a running 'think this’ll kill me?’ joke about unknown plant life she would pick up when the guards weren't looking) had taken the fall for her younger brother when stolen equipment was found in their house. The other two, Brick and Moss, had been caught allowing rebels to operate out of their businesses. 

Marksman had been a bounty hunter. He didn't have ties to any planet or race since he had been abandoned as an infant in the seedy underbelly of a backwater trading moon to be passed around by the locals like a chore. He knew he was mixed Galra, with his yellow eyes, large ears, and ridged scalp. The skin of his face was tinged purple as well, but his fur was a muddy reddish tone, striped through with a sandy color he couldn't really attribute to any race he had known. When he was an adolescent he decided to stowaway on someone's ship, uncaring of what the consequences may have been. He was found by a crewmate eventually, but the Captain was empathetic at heart and welcomed him aboard the ship.  Somewhere along the line doing odd jobs for odder people turned into checking up on debts, 'reminders’, and, be it the situation, skiptracing the ones who tried to be slick and dragging them back to whoever was paying him. He had laughed good naturedly at the suspicion on Hunk’s face, especially after Lance jumped in to explain, apologetically, what happened with Rolo and Nyma. Marksman praised Hunk for keeping his wits about him, for everyone here would catch a fine price and likely a life with little to no consequence were he to have connections to the Empire, but he had loyalties to Fearless and the others there along with his own moral sense, and would rather die young and fighting with them than old and a traitor.

Switch and River were Unilu smugglers, caught sneaking escaped prisoners out of empire territory along with parts of destroyed galran ships. There had been more of their crew, and the prisoners they were trying to save with them, but some had been split off to be sent to other places or had died in the escape.

They talked about what happened at the work camp, Fearless’s plans and what he had been able to do before being taken away. Stealing weapons, food, learning to fight, finding weak points in the camp’s security, things Matt had skipped over when telling the Paladins what he had done. Allura asked how he had managed to get away with so many offenses, shocked that they hadn't simply executed him. Hunter told her, fists clenched, that the commanders of the camp had orders to keep him alive for reasons no one found out until they all reunited at the castle. He was meant to be Shiro's replacement. Everyone skirted around what had been done to him in lieu of execution, avoiding the real answers that Shiro wanted.

Eventually the conversation shifted to how the Znti could help. There was only so much they could do. Being fairly peaceful they weren’t prepared for any kind of war, and they weren’t very technologically advanced, but they wanted to help, and they could offer supplies. Hunk asked excitedly if that included food, before thinking and looking apologetically at Coran. The Znti, who had heard of the Yellow Paladin’s culinary passion from those who had talked to him the previous night, laughed good-naturedly and assured him that food was being prepared to be sent with them. Hunk’s excited grin across from them made Lance and Keith snort. Allura smiled and thanked them.

They needed all the help they could get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys want more frequent updates... you should comment.... please......  
> also I hope y'all like sickfics bc I SURE DO and if you want to request a short fic like my latest one "I'll Be Right Here" (heith hurt/comfort) shoot an ask with a prompt in it by my tumblr smallest-turtle  
> Thanks for reading!


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